She said: “I am sure that people are hoping to use their property to produce retirement income. Ms Francis warned that too many people are relying on property values to fund retirement. Mr Cazalet told the MPs that insurers had lost £100bn on the stock market in the past three years.The Committee is concerned that not enough people in the UK are saving for their retirement. With returns from investments getting lower, how can the industry continue to charge this much for such a measly offering?”Nigel Beard MP accused insurers of being “collectively reckless” by continuing to invest in equities throughout the worst bear market seen since the 1940s. This has resulted in with-profit customers having their bonuses slashed. Costs in the industry last year were £12bn, £7bn of which was to win new business That’s staggering – about £572 a year per household An industry with these charges does not make sense.

The MPs are concerned that confidence in the industry has been dented by frequent mis-selling scandals. They heard how the industry was failing to control costs that had been built up from the need to pay high commission to salesmen.Mr Cazalet said: “Insurers have bid furiously for business through intermediaries by paying commission. He estimates that every endowment policy will fall short by an average of £11,000.Yesterday’s hearing is likely to spark a wider inquiry by the Committee into the long-term savings industry. But MPs heard from Ned Cazalet, the independent insurance analyst who was also giving evidence to the Committee, that complaints are rising rapidly and that the insurers are not communicating the problem to customers properly.

A truck bomb exploded today at the headquarters of the Italian Carabinieri police in Nasiriyah, devastating the three-story building. The result is that 210,000 acres, or 14.5 per cent of the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, will be cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the wall.International observers, including Condoleezza Rice, President George Bush’s National Security Adviser, have said the project looks like an attempt to create a new de facto border – in other words a land grab of 210,000 acres. Neighbours were woken today by the piercing screams of a mother as her three young girls died in a house blaze. She was standing in the street asking for someone to get her babies She was crying.”It was absolutely dreadful.