KB writes: Now that Alliance & Leicester is owned by Santander, which also owns Abbey, will the two banks have to share the one investor protection limit of £35,000?

As you are aware, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) will cover investors for 100% of the first £35,000 that they have invested in savings accounts, if the institution concerned fails. This limit may be spread across different brand names, if the firms share the same ownership. It all depends whether they are registered with the Financial Services Authority singly or jointly.

How do you find out? I have to say, with some difficulty. To answer your specific question, Abbey and Alliance & Leicester are retaining their separate registration, so you can have £35,000 in each bank and be fully covered by the FSCS if they both fail. Cater Allen (part of the same group) has its own registration, but this is shared with James Hay, another part of the group (principally involved in pensions), so these two companies therefore share a single limit of £35,000. Cahoot, the internet bank, operates as part of Abbey and therefore shares Abbey’s limit.

As regards other institutions, here is a quick summary. Co-op Bank and Smile: one registration, thus one limit. Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Birmingham Midshires, Saga and the AA: one limit between them all. Lloyds TSB and Cheltenham & Gloucester: one limit. Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks: one limit. Royal Bank of Scotland and Direct Line: one limit — but NatWest (owned by the same group) has a separate registration and limit shared with Tesco.

And finally Post Office and Bank of Ireland: one limit, although they are both covered by the Deposit Protection Scheme in Ireland, and the Irish government last week raised the limit from ¤20,000 to ¤100,000 (£80,000).

Neither the FSCS nor the FSA websites carry this information in easily accessible form. The FSA carries details of all registrations, and if you have savings with one firm, and are thinking of putting money with another, you could take a note of the first registration number and cross-check it.

The FSA said it was looking at whether it could help consumers more — but “the trouble is there is no legal definition of a brand name” and can only recommend that customers seek the advice of individual firms if they are thinking of moving their savings. The best website I have come across to provide an at-a-glance guide is moneysavingexpert.com.

Before you all ask — Lloyds TSB said it was “too early to say” whether the components of the HBOS organisation would be subsumed under Lloyds TSB for registration.

Desperate to win Barclays’ interest

CC writes: I am writing in desperation to get a problem with Barclays resolved. In March I decided to use the proceeds of a life policy to top up my 2007-8 cash Isa with Barclays by £2,235.58, and start another Isa in 2008-9 with the maximum £3,600. To cut a very long story short, by mid-August the money was still in my current account. I certainly feel that Barclays owes me some interest above what I’m getting on the current account.

I quite agree. To be fair, Barclays moved quickly once I contacted it. The bank admitted it had failed on two counts: it did not manage to top up your Isa from last year; nor did it manage to open an Isa for you this year. Because of HMRC regulations, the bank is no longer able to top up your 2007-8 Isa, but is offering you £300 for loss of interest and the inconvenience. As you are not a higher-rate taxpayer, this more than makes good the loss you have suffered here. And as regards the 2008-9 Isa, Barclays will, if you still wish it, open the Isa now — and backdate interest right to the start of the financial year. If you don’t want to open your Isa with Barclays, then it will send you another £100 to compensate for loss of interest. I had a quick flurry on my calculator and by my reckoning there’s only a few pounds — perhaps £5 — difference between these two options. You are happy with this result.

Two times a fraud victim

DC writes: I have been having a number of problems with my Lloyds TSB Mastercards. I experienced a clutch of fraudulent transactions earlier this year emanating from Chile, which were refunded. Then I noticed three further fraudulent payments — meanwhile, I never received my April card statement.

Lloyds was slow off the mark in relation to this second bout of fraud; you wrote to me nearly four months after it had occurred but despite a number of efforts on your part, had had no news.

The bank has now written to you with apologies and to confirm that the three further payments, totalling £130, have now been refunded to your card, and it has offered you £100 as an apology for the length of time it took.

This has to be a wake-up call for everyone with a credit card. Someone, somehow, had succeeded in notifying Lloyds that you had changed your address, which is why you never received your April statement.

Lloyds says it has a number of security procedures in place to stop such fake address changes, but somehow this one got through. As I understand it, two of your original cards have been closed and the one that remains open has had a password applied to it to protect against future fraudulent activity.

Yet as the banks battle with mounting fraud — Lloyds has been recruiting new staff to cope with the rise — we all need to make sure we spot anything untoward as soon as possible.

After five months my claim is unpaid

MW writes: Please can you help bring this horribly messy insurance claim to its proper conclusion? After five months my house is still as the fire crews left it (albeit drier). I am insured with Norwich Union through Barclays. Barclays’ loss adjuster, Crawfords, is handling the claim. However, there are so many agents involved that nobody seems to be in a position to “press the start button”.

You had got to the stage where you simply did not know what to do next, having spent months writing and phoning the various firms involved.

You told me — very generously I felt — that it was possible you made mistakes in the handling of the situation as well as the insurers. Whether that was true or not (and from the file you sent me, you seemed to have been most diligent in pursuing the matter), the point is that most customers are not experts in dealing with insurance claims — insurers should be.

After I got in touch with Barclays and Norwich Union, you say, “the whole mood lightened”, although it was still a long, hard slog.

Norwich Union admits that the delays — due to a mix-up between loss adjusters, its builder network and then building contractors — were “unacceptable”.

The work has now finally been finished, paid for directly by Norwich Union, and it is also paying for the extra costs that you incurred in relation to the damage, including the replacement of lost insulation, repair of the TV aerial, laundering, replacement of blinds and the extra half tank of heating oil that you used in drying out your home — in all amounting to £812.

And with only the tiniest push from me, Norwich Union is also sending you a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine.