XFool wrote: its approach to business may well be to work out some 'clever' wheeze of transferring that risk back to me? Perhaps it will add to shareholders value by coming up with some similar wheeze whereby it doesn't need to pay me if and when I make a claim. I just don't know...
That is about the size of it.
They are also in the investment management business. Why it should be in the interests of those for whom they manage investments to introduce uncertainty and losses into a market sector is equally inexplicable. Actually it is explicable if you presume the CEO and CFO don't have a clue as to the likely effect of their pronouncements and the rest of the Board aren't able to stand up to them.
The rumoured explanation seems to be that an unnamed firm of accountants or lawyers has come up with a clever wheeze or legal interpretation which they have sold on to Aviva. Whilst a clever wheeze that reduces tax isn't necessarily regarded as morally wrong, short changing investors breaks premises of market trust and hence the widespread condemnation.