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By the end of 2008, all firms in the financial services sector must be able to demonstrate that they consistently treat their customers fairly.

However, according to FSA director and insurance sector leader Sarah Wilson the industry as a whole still has a lot of work to do in the areas of risk measurement management and control.

Speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs conference today (15 May), she said life insurers, in particular, needed to improve the quality of consumer information as well as the governance of with-profits policies.

She also said that in key features documents (KFDs) the use of jargon represented a significant problem and key information was not always prominently communicated.

According to Wilson, the FSA is in the process of assessing the quality of literature or wake-up packs issued to pension customers as they approach retirement age, as well as the delays by some firms in transferring open market option funds to other annuity providers.

The results of these investigations are expected to be published in July, but she said it had already become clear that more than 40 per cent of the wake up packs reviewed had failed to meet the regulatory TCF requirements.

"Over the coming months of our TCF work we will scrutinise how firms have responded to our feedback on all of these areas.

"As is usual, we will keep under review the use of varying types of supervisory action where change is not evident, including enforcement where there are examples of significant potential or actual consumer detriment," she said.

Earlier today the FSA sparked controversy when it said that dual pricing policies adopted by mortgage lenders were not anti-TCF. (See story here.)