Change Management

Task details: Case study

Equitable Life: creating chaos out of order A good case of chaos emerging out of order is shown by the Equitable Life Assurance Society. For 200 years Equitable was a 'safe pair of hands looking after life insurance and pensions, typically for society's professionals - doctors, engineers, teachers and managers. However, in the years before 1988 it sold policies to some investors that guaranteed the pay out of certain benefits. Time passed and interest rates rose and fell.

A situation built up in which Equitable did not have enough money to keep paying out to those to whom it had guaranteed returns Realizing this, Equitable tried to stop paying out the rates it had guaranteed. But people with the guaranteed return policies wanted their money. Legal action was taken, ending up in the House of Lords where the Law Lords ruled that the policies had to be honoured. But where could Equitable find the money to honour its promises? Its answer was to take money from its policyholders who did not have guaranteed return policies and give it to those with guarantees.

The Lords' decision caused Equitable to close to new business- not that anyone in their right mind Diagnosing change situations 59 would have taken out a new policy with them. Most of its policyholders were worried about their investments and many looked to transfer their policies to a secure institution.

Equitable's 200-year-old world collapsed and along with it the well-being of thousands of policyholders. Investors who decided to transfer their money out to another investment company saw the value of their policies reduced by transfer penalties. Even so, many investors cut their losses and transferred to what they hoped would be a safer investment company.

The Lords' decision forced Equitable to seek a buyer, but with a 1.5 billion gap in one day exploded. The events central to this case appear to be traceable to decisions taken by 'top' managers under the influence of environmental forces. That said, if the Law Lords had come to a different decision, then perhaps Equitable and thousands of its customers would have avoided so big a crisis. Thus, some environmental 'throw of the dice' was at play. We can also see how warming signs and signals were ignored.

Before the turmoil, the Treasury had realized that Equitable would be insolvent if it had to find cash to meet its guarantees (Senior, 2001). Furthermore, the true poor performance of Equitable was an open secret in financial circles, yet it continued to pay out relatively high bonuses (and so top the league tables) in preference to putting aside funds that could be used when markets were less prosperous (Miles, 2000). The Board, in what seems to be a rather pathetic action, thought about suing former executives, financial advisors and auditors.

Q1. Refer to the section on 'environmental turbulence' in Chapter 1. Which (one or more) of the five levels of environmental turbulence do you think fits the situation Equitable Life found itself in?

02. What type(s) of change was Equitable Life pushed into? Do you agree or disagree with the changes the organisation made?

Q3. What recommendations would you make to have improve the situation at the organisation?