Irish Life, the company at the centre of malpractice allegations, is probably one of the very few companies that has recently overhauled its sales and marketing departments to the point where churning and other blatant mis-selling practices would be easily detected. Churning is the unnecessary resale of insurance policies by a broker or agent with a view to generating commission on the policy. The fact-finding regime it has introduced is based on British standards set by its independent regulatory authority.

In mid-1996 Irish Life also set up an independent compliance office within the company, answerable only to the group chief operating officer. It has responsibility for implementing proper compliance procedures, but also for implementing and supervising the implementation of any outside regulations or legislative changes.

More importantly, the complaints management function now comes under the compliance office and it is responsible for ensuring that complaints are handled fairly within the company. An Irish Life spokesman said the churning cases raised in recent weeks were being investigated internally and by a team of investigators from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. He said the new chief executive, Mr David Went, "deplores such practices and will not tolerate them".

The company has not ruled out disciplinary action against staff found to have been involved in churning practices nor has it ruled out compensating customers who lost funds.