MORE readers have complained about how they too are going to lose out when Norwich Union issues free shares upon its conversion from a mutual to a publicly quoted company next year.

Last week we wrote about how a couple in Limerick discovered that the mortgage protection policy they have with the Norwich Union is part of a group policy that their building society, the EBS, took out with the Norwich. As the grantee account holder and Norwich member, the EBS will benefit from the free share allocation at the expense of our readers and all the other policy holders who have been paying the monthly premiums.

Other readers have since discovered that their policies are also part of a group account: Mr G from Castleknock, whose mortgage protection policy is part of a group account taken out by his lender National Irish Bank, was told by the bank that the share allocation "is outside their control. I think that all aggrieved policy-holders affected in this way should immediately write and complain to Norwich Union.

This situation will be familiar to Irish Permanent Building Society members who found that because their names, for example, did not come first on a joint account, or because they had switched out of one kind of account into another that they became disenfranchised when the Irish Permanent was floated on the stock exchange in 1994. Many widows, in particular, lost out because their late husbands names were not taken off their account books. The society claimed it was bound by it own rules and the Building Society Act to issue shares to first-named account holders only.

Like Irish Permanent, Norwich Union is now citing its articles and rules of association as an explanation why grantee account holders will receive the free shares instead of the individual mortgage protection policy-holders.