Back in January, the lifeboat scheme had forecast its levy for the year to be £1.04bn, which was a jump of 48 per cent on last year’s total.
But the FSCS today (May 13) said this has now been cut by £206m for two reasons.
Firstly, firms expected to fail this year could now fail in the 2022/23 financial year and beyond due to the extension of government Covid support schemes.
Secondly, the FSCS said it saw lower claims volumes relating to recent insurance failures than had been expected and there are also a number of self-invested personal pension claims which will now be paid out in 2021/22 rather than this year.
Advice firms are still expected to contribute £240m to the levy. This is the same as last year, due to the fact the class is forecast to breach its funding limits for the second year in a row.
The FSCS stated: “These factors have led to a surplus for the 2020/21 financial year, which has been used to offset the previously forecasted £1.04bn levy.”
Caroline Rainbird, chief executive of the FSCS, said: "While it may be welcome news to see a lower forecast than announced in January, we do not call this a successful outcome or 'good news'.
“There is still a chance that these re-forecasted failures could occur in the years ahead. We also appreciate the levy, even at this updated forecast of £833m, is too high and the cost could put pressure on firms' finances.”
Despite the cut, the £833m levy still represents an increase of £133m on the previous year’s levy of £700m.
This is partly due to higher value pension advice claims in the Life Distribution and Investment Intermediation class and failures of Sipp operators in the Investment Provision class.
Retail Pool
As a number of classes are likely to see more claims than they can be invoiced for in a year, the £833m levy is expected to include £116m from the retail pool, a drop from the £252m forecasted in January’s plan.
This is a separate pot that other FCA classes are required to contribute to if they have not reached their maximum levy limit, and another class has exceeded its limit.
As the full impact of Covid-19 is still unknown, there are a number of uncertainties around the number, size, and timing of any potential future failures, the FSCS said.
