THE chief pensions watchdog in Britain urged people who might have been mis-sold personal pensions to respond to letters and questionnaires and speed up the compensation process.

More than 1.5 million people are thought to be eligible for payments after being persuaded to opt out of or ignore profitable company schemes in favour of poorer personal schemes.

Last week five life assurance companies, including Irish Life, failed to prevent a group of public service workers taking their claims for compensation for alleged mis-selling directly to court rather than wait for the industry's own review to be completed.

Company pensions are invariably more beneficial to workers because employers contribute to them. They rarely pay into personal plans. City analysts believe the life insurance industry could face a final bill of £4 billion.

Commenting on a progress report by the Securities and Investments Board, which launched a review in October 1994 its chairman, Sir Andrew Large, said it was of paramount importance that the pension review process was concluded as quickly as possible.

"A huge amount of work has been done but neither we nor investors will be satisfied until redress has been given to all of those to whom it is due. Investors themselves can help by responding promptly to correspondence from their pension providers or advisers.

"We believe that the programme should be substantially completed without further delay the industry will then be entitled to take credit for correcting the mistakes of the past."