Scot Wids/Cler Med suffer 22% sales dive ahead of merger

The firm blamed challenging market conditions for the performance of its Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical operations, which are due to merge later this year. The banking giant, formed from the merger of HBOS and Lloyds TSB last year, expects to make an overall loss in 2009 as it struggles to deal with the financial crisis which nearly crippled HBOS last autumn. Life and pensions new business fell by 22% across the group compared with the first quarter of 2008. The firm also revealed its insurance business has made £0.7bn in losses due to volatility in equity markets and widening c...