FR: Do you feel later life advice services are a neglected part of the financial services profession?
Partly and this is because, for the most part, advisers tend to find a speciality and then ‘stick to their knitting’. So, you’ll have a pension specialist, or investment advisers, or corporate advisers – of course you also have specialist later life advisers but there are not that many. Instead, you’ll have advisers who tend to touch on one area of later life advice such as equity release, and while they will take an interest in the client’s other later life needs they may not be delivering advice and recommendations in those areas.
This is why we want to draw attention to the plethora of advice needs that those in later life have. You do not simply hit 65 and then all your advice needs go out of the window – if anything you need advice more than ever before. Advisers should also be aware that this is a growing marketplace – we have an aging population in the UK and this is not likely to change in the long-term. Plus this is a demographic that is confronting some incredibly serious issues – cost of living, pension shortfalls, interest-only mortgages, long-term care funding, to name just a few.
FR: The number of older people in the UK continues to rise. What are their advice needs and how can they be met?
The simple answer is to say that their advice needs are many and varied. The most important point we wish to address is the need for joined-up thinking when it comes to later life advice. At the very least advisers in separate areas such as pensions, annuities, equity release, long-term care, etc should be taking the other needs of their clients into consideration and, if they are unable to provide the advice themselves, then they should have be able to introduce to those that can.
At the moment we have too few advisers looking at later life advice needs in the round and part of the aim of the Later Life Academy is to support advisers across all those areas whether they be legal services or wills, or mortgages into retirement. We want to bring them under one roof and provide them with access to training and education in these areas plus we are also delivering real business opportunities that they can explore. In essence we are aiming to make it really worthwhile for advisers to be involved in as many later life areas as possible because the more services they can offer, the more rounded the advice process they will be able to deliver to their clients.
FR: How will the Government’s reforms to the pensions market affect the provision of later life advice?
The pension reforms announced by George Osborne in the March Budget were certainly far-reaching and, one might even say, seismic. The fallout began immediately and clearly insurers offering annuities are having to do some serious thinking about how pensioners will access their pension pots and what they will do with them in the future. I still think there will be a need for a product which provides a regular income to pensioners however what this will end up looking like is still up for debate.
The Government recognised the need for pensioners to have advice although there appears to be something of a mess developing in terms of what that advice will look like, is this in fact guidance, and how it will be delivered. Essentially, the Government should be promoting existing later life advisers however this has morphed into a ‘guidance guarantee’ and who knows who might be providing this to consumers come April next year. Those working in this sector should certainly be positioning themselves as experts in the field, able to help across all product areas because, as stated, the needs of those individuals accessing their pensions in this new way will be many.
FR: The equity release market appears to be gaining some traction – there have recently been suggestions that the Government should provide its own equity release type product. Is this achievable and will it be a threat to the current market?
It is of course achievable but one wonders whether the Government will want to put further taxpayers’ money at risk particularly as this will be a major long-term commitment for the public purse. Despite the more bullish UK economic data there are still major cuts being made across many Government departments and I suspect this idea will not get much further than the idea stage. The positive in all of this is that it has got many more people talking about equity release and perhaps there will be a greater focus on what we already have.
We have a pretty strong private equity release sector in the UK and therefore my preference would be to see some strong Government support given to the providers and advisers already operating in this area. Many people who would benefit most from equity release are either still unaware of the solution that it can provide or still have many misconceptions about the products. Clearly the Equity Release Council continues to do great educational work in this area however if we were to have the power of a Government department actively supporting the equity release solution this would go a long way to ensuring that the products reach is wider than it currently is. We need to get the message across that it is a great product which can do a great deal of good for people.
FR: If you weren’t in financial services, what would you be doing?
I trained to work in hospitality and events management, but once I graduated I chose a different career path that has seen me ok for over 25 years. I love working in ‘people industries’ and both financial services and hospitality management gave me that benefit. If I didn’t have to worry about earning money I would be fly-fishing in Montana.
