About 215,000 policy holders with the Aviva insurance company have been given extra time to accept a special payment.
They will now have until 21 September to decide if they want the money.
Aviva said that in the “reattribution” process for two of its with-profits funds, 78.5% of the one million savers involved had voted, with 96% accepting.
Most are being offered between £200 and £1000 to relinquish any future claim to a share of surplus money in the funds that hold their investments.
“As a result of this huge response we’ve made arrangements to accept votes through September so that any remaining eligible policyholders don’t miss out on this deal,” said a spokeswoman.
“All eligible policyholders who want to benefit from this offer need to vote now,” she added.
The original deadline was 21 August.
‘Inherited estates’
The total payout will be worth at least £500m to the investors, though this revised sum is much lower than initially suggested, after the slump in share and property values experienced during the past two years.
The money is being offered as a way of resolving the ownership of the funds’ so-called “inherited estate”.
This is the money that has been built up as a surplus cushion in two of Aviva’s huge with-profits funds over many decades.
These investments are used to pay people with endowment, pension and other with-profits investment policies.
The two funds affected are the CGNU Life and CULAC.
Those savers who vote yes should receive their money this November.
Those who vote not to accept the offer, or fail to vote at all, will receive nothing but will keep their entitlement to any future redistribution of their funds’ “inherited estate”.
Aviva has said though that any such move is highly unlikely.
