Scottish Widows has followed hard on the heels of Aegon Scottish Equitable by imposing restrictions on 200,000 investors in its £2bn life and pensions property funds.

Last Friday, Aegon imposed a lock-in, or waiting period, of up to 12 months on 129,000 investors in its £2bn funds. Now Scottish Widows, as The Herald suggested on Saturday, has brought in a "180-day delay" for any policyholders invested in property funds who requests redemptions, transfers or switches.

"We are taking this action to be fair to all policyholders," Widows said. "Following several years of attractive returns, the commercial property market has seen a slowdown. This has led to some investors taking the profits they have made from commercial property over recent years, lowering the short-term liquidity levels of many property funds in the market." Its property funds had seen "high levels of switches into our other funds", putting pressure on the managers to sell investments.

"Unlike many other asset classes, commercial property can take time to buy and sell," the insurer said. "The delay means that we can implement an orderly programme of sales over a longer period, with the aim of providing liquidity within a reasonable period for those who want to leave the funds.

"At the same time, our fund managers will have the opportunity to obtain fair values for properties we sell, protecting the performance of the funds for the majority of policyholders who wish to remain invested."

The delay starts from the day a request is received. In common with other insurers, the wait does not apply on death, on retirement, to regular pension payments, to critical illness claims or at a policy's maturity date, while existing regular withdrawals are also unaffected.

The restrictions do not apply to any other Scottish Widows funds, including SWIP's Property Trust.