So what are the driving forces behind these upheavals. Well, the Pru’s small contretemps with the FSA is one reason. In itself its not a huge issue and will undoubtedly be resolved, but it is symptomatic of the regulatory burden (and associated financial costs) suffered by UK insurers.
For the Pru, the attractions of the Far East are immense. It is a region overflowing with opportunity. Growth is likely to be significantly higher in the region than in Western markets. The savings ratio is high and the increasingly sophisticated populations are hungary for help and advice. Players like the Pru will be able not just to participate in the fledgling financial services industry, but shape it to their own designs, just as the “Man from the Pru” shaped the UK savings market for over a century from 1848 to the 1980s.

Contrast this with the UK, where the long term trend in the UK for households to spend everything they have, and more, ignoring any faint feelings about responsible saving for long term security has held the savings ratio at around zero for a number of years. Admittedly, the ratio has grudgingly risen to around 8% in the last few months, but there is no evidence yet that this a long term structural trend. It is probably more of a blip as households try to rebuild balance sheets in the short term before re-embarking on the usual spending spree, spending which tends not to include investment in life assurance, pensions or investments.

Then there is the Retail Distribution Review and the upheaval in the way financial products are designed and priced from 2012. Speculation is rife that the large insurers may each have to write out cheques in the order of hundreds of millions of pounds to redesign and reprice products for RDR compliance through the inclusion of adviser charging.

Add to this the EU Solvency II requirements to be introduced in 2012 and you start to understand why the boardrooms of the UK’s insurance industry must be hot with strategic reviews.

No one is denying that investor protection is necessary, but it seems that we are seeing a not unexpected - and politically driven - clampdown in financial services that could lead ultimately to significantly reduced choice and a stifling of development and innovation, so no pressure for the next government, then.