Should you or shouldn't you? Speculating is a risky business, and buying a long-term investment in the hope that the company concerned will float on the stock exchange and pay its members free bonus shares, certainly falls into that category.

In the past fortnight another 20,000 people have decided to have a flutter, this time in the hope that Scottish Provident will be the next company to "demutualise" and reward its members.

The 20,000 new Canada Life customers, who bought with-profit policies between December and March (some for as little as £20 a month) on the foot of the rumour that that company was going to go to the stock market in the near future, were proven right. Canada Life is to seek a public listing on the Toronto and other Canadian stock exchange late next year. So far, it seems that only those customers who hold with-profit investments (as opposed to unit-linked ones or ordinary protection policies) will benefit from a free share allocation.

Company sources told Family Money recently that it was also likely that longer-serving qualifying members with larger investments would probably benefit more than the carpet-baggers, but this is still to be determined under Canadian regulations.

Whatever the size of the allocation, there still remains the real problem that many people will be tempted to stop paying into their Canada Life savings policy once they get their free shares. Since these policies are heavily front-loaded with charges and can take up to 10 years to start showing a profit, the value of any free shares could be diluted if the policy is encashed early.

Is the Scottish Provident carpet-bagging a repeat of the Canada Life situation? Most industry observers seem to think not. Instead, they believe that rather than Scottish Provident becoming a public company, (it is a relatively small player on the world life assurance stage) it is more likely to demutualise as part of a friendly takeover bid. If that happened, policyholders are more likely to receive bonus allocations to their investment funds rather than shares.

Valuable as it may be, a bonus allocation is considerably less "mobile" an investment than shares and is subject to ongoing fund costs and to the general lack of transparency associated with the pricing of with-profit products in general.

The fee-based independent brokers we have been in contact with say they are discouraging clients from buying a Scottish Provident with-profits policy, if their only reason for doing so is the possibility of getting free shares. Few believe Scottish Provident small is a realistic candidate for plc status; all have warned their clients of the cost implications of encashing such a policy in the short to medium term.

Standard Life, they say, has the fund size and sales volume needed to go public, but that company has gone to considerable lengths to insist that the rumours are groundless. (Canada Life, it must be said, did the same.)

Jumping on the Standard Life bandwagon will now cost a minimum of £50 a month (up from just £10 before the flotation rumours started), but if the frenzy continues, it may have to follow Canada Life's earlier lead and raise the minimum premium to £200 a month to finally put a stop to the speculation, and protect the greedy from themselves.