Briefly noted

□ Max Taylor, deputy chairman of Aon UK, has been appointed non-executive director of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) from 1 September 2007. The FSCS announced recently that it paid £150m in compensation during 2006/7 with £66m paid by general insurers. Some £82m of the total bill for the year was paid in respect of endowment, pension review and other investment claims. The FSCS completed a total of 31,260 claims during the last financial year with more than half of these (16,844) related to general insurance but with the vast majority of claims received were concerned with mortgage endowment policies.