Fiddling...

Famously, it was the Roman Emperor Nero who 'fiddled while Rome burned'. 

At an age when you or I would have been stacking shelves in Tescos, or were out on our paper-rounds, this chap became ruler of the known world.  Unless you are a very well-balanced person, this kind of status has a tendency to go to your head.

And so it was with Nero.  His solution to the challenges raised to his redevelopment plans for Rome was to burn the place down - to make way for his lavish building projects.  Folklore tells us that whilst the ancient architecture went up in flames, he played his fiddle to while away the time.  At times, this seems to me to be an altogether too tempting scenario...

It seems to me that much the same is going on at the current time.  Here we are in the midst of the biggest financial crisis we've experienced, and what is happening?  Every communication from Norwich Union proudly proclaims that they're changing their name to 'Aviva'.  Why?  What does that add to the sum total of human knowledge?  Apparently, they've spent billions on the rebranding - I just wish that they'd had that degree of commitment to their customer services.

And then there's Britannic Asset Management.  Or was it Resolution?  Oh no, I forgot - it's Ignis.  Hang on, I thought that 'Ignis' was a cheap Suzuki car?  Well, perhaps I'm getting confused - either way, 'Ignis' is not telling me a lot about this particular company.  I wonder if we should start a sweepstake on the next name-change?

Not so long back we went through the tortuous and distinctly unhelpful transitions from National Mutual Life to GE Life, which then ended up with Windsor Life before it unravelled a tad to Liverpool Victoria.  And then there's the carving up of the old ANFI carcass between Royal London Mutual, Pearl Group and Phoenix Life - if anyone out there feels they have a grip on this one, I'd be glad to hear from them.

I suppose all of this continual re-jigging and name-changing must keep someone busy (not least our database administrator), but I would be very interested if it were possible to identify a single substantive benefit for the poor policyholder.  Whilst all these conglomerates buy, sell, swap and rename bits of old companies, it is doubtful if any demonstrable improvement accrues to investors and pensioners.  In fact, quite the reverse is the case.  The net effect of all this relentless change is that the old familiar institutions recede into a state of remote facelessness, where the money is spent on marketing and rebranding and I suspect the customer is progressively disempowered as a result.

So, what's the FSA doing about it?