It saw total continuing new life and pensions business up 39% at £3,588m (£2,581m in September 2013), with group pensions at £1,729m (+101%), individual pensions at £946m (+22%), drawdown at £579m (+23%) and protection at £244m (-29%)
The group has more than doubled its new business in the group pensions market in the last year and in the drawdown space it accounts for over a quarter of the insured advised market.
The group will continue to focus on building a broad-based protection business by bringing together Scottish Provident and Bright Grey into a single Royal London branded intermediary focused business with enhanced service and product coverage and better pricing. The initial impact of these initiatives on protection sales will begin to emerge in Q4 2014.
Total Group funds under management were £78.4bn as at 30 September 2014, an increase of 7% on 30 September 2013.
Phil Loney, Group Chief Executive of Royal London, said:
"I am pleased and encouraged by these results: new business performance of our individual pensions is particularly pleasing given that automatic enrolment is reducing the total size of this market. The fact that we have retained and grown market share underlines the competiveness of our pensions proposition.
"With year-on-year growth in the workplace pensions market of over 100%, we are becoming a significant player in this expanding market. In the year to date we have secured 1,272 new workplace schemes and over 69,327 new customers who are all mutual members of Royal London. Our focus is on medium-sized companies, many of whom are yet to go through auto enrolment. We actively look for employers wishing to install a quality workplace pension with robust administration support.
"Having successfully led the campaign for the guidance guarantee to be independently provided, we are currently working with the Pensions Advisory Service and the Number 10 ”nudge” unit to test different approaches to increase customer take-up of the government’s guidance guarantee. We see successful guidance as likely to increase the market for regulated impartial financial advice. The Guidance Guarantee, although welcome, will not be enough to ensure that the public gets the best outcomes from the government’s reforms. Customers who do not have access to a regulated financial advisor are particularly at risk. We are working on future ways to give our retiring non-advised customers access to independent and impartial advisory firms at low cost, and on product solutions, such as our open market annuity panel, which bring the best products in the market to our non-advised customers, rather than a “Royal London only” offering.
Our protection business has embarked on a major programme of product and proposition work. We have implemented changes and expect sales to begin to improve in Q4 2014. We are focusing on improving customer and adviser experience, providing cover where it counts and more flexible prices. Our customers will also benefit from the efficiencies created by the consolidation of Scottish Provident and Bright Grey products under the single Royal London brand in 2015."
