A perspective on equity release & social care

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  • 38 mins 32 secs

Learning: Structured

Tutors:

  • Jim Boyd, Chief Executive Officer, Equity Release Council
  • Lord David Willetts, Chairman, Resolution Foundation
  • Steve Webb, Partner, Lane Clark & Peacock
  • Tony Miles, Technical Director, My Care Consultant
  • David Sinclaire, Director, International Longevity Centre
  • Damian Green, Chairman, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity
  • Rob Miles, Head of Adviser Sales, Legal & General
  • Chris Pond, Chairman, Equity Release Council Standards Board
  • John Godfrey, Director of Corporate Affairs, Legal & General
  • Nigel Mills, MP, Work and Pensions Committee
  • Steve Groves, Chairman, Retirement Bridge
  • Claire Singleton, CEO, Legal & General Home Finance
  • Andrew Morris, Senior Equity Release Advisor, Age Partnership
  • Heather Wheeler, MP, Former Housing Minister
  • Jacqui Berry, Managing Director, My Care Consultant
  • Craig Faulkner, Business Development Manager, Pure Retirement
  • Martin Lines, Business Development Director, Just
  • Les Pick, Head of Sales & Equity Release, Canada Life
  • Donna Bathgate, Chief Operating Officer, Equity Release Council

Learning outcomes:

  1. Current thinking on social care funding
  2. How public policy is impacted by an ageing population
  3. The role of equity release as a solution
  4. How clients view equity release
  5. The support available to advisers in the equity release market
Channel: Business Development
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equity release is becoming an increasingly important tool for advisors in financial planning. A swell as a solution for care needs and intergenerational wealth strategies. We attended the inaugural Equity Release Council Summit and caught up with many of the leading providers and individuals in the equity release space to learn what is happening. If you attended the summit, this video should serve as a good reminder of some of the things you learned on the day. And if you didn't, you could find out what you missed. Before we hear from the experts who attended, let's have a look at the learning outcomes from this academia session. First, we look at what the current thinking is on social care policy and how public policy is impacted by an aging population. Then we look at the role of equity releases, a solution and how clients can view it as a product before finishing with a look at the support that's available to advisors. I'm joined now by Jim Boy. He's the chief executive off the Equity Release Council, which in this is the first time you held a conference like this. You're holding it in Westminster. Why? Well, I I believe this is the pivotal time for the industry. The market is reached historically high levels, but too often people actually dames understand, actually so in terms of its real value on its real value, in my opinion, is helping solve the major domestic issues of our time. Today. We're talking about intergenerational fairness, the balance with competing obligations between generations on actually how property can help these people in NATO life meet these critical issues. And there's huge costs, whether it's the retirement, a supplement for many people haven't had adequate savings. Actually, more to the point, these people in the care system we're looking forever longer lives in retirement care. But it might not be fair to ask the younger generations who lack the assets that people in AIDS life have. But just so that that debate takes place on the balance between generations and the value of property wealth could be considered on. I think, given the Westminster's the hearts of our policy formulation, it's important those conversations take take place here. I'm joined now by Lord Willets. He is chairman off the Resolution Foundation, but well, it's you just come off stage here at the equity release conference. You describing a world where the baby boomers are long on assets, but they're also long on liabilities. What's the solution? Well, the baby boomer generation have got enormous net assets, both in their housing, on also in their pensions on If we need to increase taxes, toe help fund social care. I don't want those to be taxes that fall on the younger generation working age generation. I think it's really important that if older people have got those assets in some way, we draw on that those that wealth to help fund social camp. How do you go about selling that politically? Because Theresa may tried it not long ago on it didn't end well for in an election. I think there are lessons from that. You have to be open about the options. You need a long discussion. You need a cap on the maximum amount people have to pay personally. You also need a floor below which their wealth doesn't fall. You need to have a properly protected scheme way. Also need to look at ways in with just a collection of taxes on our rising wealth is used to help fund health and social care effectively. We can't just expect it to be done by conventional taxes, which the younger generation pay were not. And they don't even own a house. Steve Webb is a partner at Lane Clark Peacock. He used to be the pensions minister, and he joins me now. Steve, if I'm coming up to retirement, how attractive is my house going to look to the government? When is trying to fund a shortfall in pensions and in social care? I think I'll certainly be government ministers looking enviously at the nation's stock of housing wealth. We know that people coming up to retirement some of them will have worse pensions than in previous generations. That death of final salary pensions in the private sector, for example, means that there will be people pension shortfalls. So in theory, tapping into your housing wealth could be part of the mix, and it will be right for some people. But I think there are limits to that. For example, a 65 the most you could borrow is perhaps 1/3 of the value of your house, so it's not like you look a £200,000 house and think you've got 200,000 play with. It's nothing like that. I think this is regionally concentrated. You know, this may not be much of an answer in the north of England. You know, that kind of issue on, I think obviously people do need advice around these products, and their willingness to pay for advice is quite limited. So I think there's a number of barriers. There is a role for actually release in solving the pensions crisis, but I think it might be quite limited. To what extent do you think the pension could be a really good and flexible vehicle for providing top ups to other things? Such a social care? My feeling on social care is that it's not really a savings issue. It's an insurance issue. What do I mean by that? Is none of the You know, I know if we are going to be the person who needs extensive social care, we could be knocked over by a bus and have zero costs. We could have dementia and being account for 10 years, and it's absurd to think that we should always save enough in case we have 10 years in a care home. what we should do as we do with any other risk. It's bullet way. Do that with car insurance with home insurance. So what we need is not savings products where we all try and save mawr. We're not even saving enough for retirement. Way should have financial products. I think where you can pull that risk and role of government for me is to provide tax breaks, incentives, encouragement to the industry, to come up with products where you could use a chunk of capital from your pension or from your house to buy an insurance product. That meant you don't face this catastrophic care costs because you called the mother of the people. 20 miles is the technical director at my care consultant, and he joins me now. I think there's an agreement that there's a crisis in social care is the only way the country can afford it by selling houses. Yeah, it's a really good question mark. How people pay for care is a really big issue in the market at the moment. The government is looking at this whole area at the moment. Only a few days ago, Matt Hancock wrote to all MPs and peers to try and build some cross party consensus as to how the social care crisis Cumbie can be solved in terms of people having to pay for it. I suspect that there is no universal silver bullet to this issue on that. Ultimately, most people who have the ability to pay will have to pay something, given the costs of care of the moment. That then opens up the issue well, Where are they going to find the money from? And it always strikes me that there are. Most people have two large assets they have, if they're lucky, a decent pension fund and again, perhaps, if they're lucky, a residential property with some equity in it. So it's always struck us that at some point in time, people's property will need to be used, in part at least, to fund some aspect of their social care. And the other reason why I think that's probably politically expedient is this issue of intergenerational fairness. To ask people to pay for two, to ask younger people to pay for care out of general taxation bluntly just doesn't seem to me to be fair. So I think there are no easy answers to this question, but I do think that somewhere down the line there needs to be a really serious, open and public debate about the use of assets on like residential property to at least make a partial contribution. Perhaps the government can afford to pay a sort of bottom line level of care on the assets like property are then used for. If you like additional services on top, older people are well known for being keen on voting. Did they think that they are as well off as you're implying? Well, of course, there are huge great disparities on. There is no such thing as a typical older person. Everybody's different and some people have considerable assets, and some people have unfortunately, very little. So that's why I said the beginning. I don't think there is any silver bullet to this. I mean, if you look a residential property, for example, there are increasing number of people of of an older age renting properties. So and also some people's houses are not necessarily suitable collateral for extra release mortgages. But I do think that when we look at solutions and what solutions are are available somewhere down the line housing property has to come into the equation. David Sinclair is director off the International Longevity Center UK, and he joins me. Now tell us a bit about the center festival well at the International Longevity Center or I'll see U K Focus on exploring how we can ensure that way. Understand the impact off longevity on society. So we're not in older people's organization where age Futural were interested in exploring what happens next. How we make the most of the fact we have an ageing society on don't focus too much on. They're sort of pessimistic. Aging costs more when it comes to aging and demographics. What can we learn from other societies in the UK? We've been aging over about 300 years. In fact, same applies much of the northern Europe if you go to places like China or Korea or Singapore their age at the same rate over 30 or 40 years, and what you're starting to see in those countries is rial sort of fast paced innovation. In China, for example, they've just produced this big 85 year aging plan which is already delivering real changes. Singapore investing significantly the reality is in the UK for public policy because we've been aging so slowly. It just hasn't been the incentive for public policy to act so therefore, social care remains a mess. We have no solution to some of the challenges of social care. Intergenerational in the qualities remain a big challenge. We've got a problem around how we support people to work longer. Pension simply are adequate for future generations. So we've got all these major crisis. But it's never. It's always been tomorrow's problem. What point do we need to face up to the fact that it's now today's problem? I think we're getting to this tipping point now where there is greater public policy recognition that way have relatively smaller traditional working age population, not enough younger people and relatively larger older age population economies For chancellors of the exchequer. That problem with that is, if you haven't got enough people paying taxes, if you haven't got enough people contributing, then actually you're not creating jobs. You're not creative enough well for the economy to deliver the sort of society wants. Now there are solutions this actually supporting people to work a bit longer, tackling ill health in sort of mid life extraordinarily important. But it seems to me that way are this tipping points? And the actually, businesses might drive change a little bit going forward so way are about to hit this point where way aren't gonna have enough workers in huge bits of the economy. So all the workers may well have to fill the gap. I'm joined now by the right Honorable Damian Green MP. He is the chairman off the all party parliamentary group on Jefty. He used to be the sexual state work inventions. What Mr if social care is such a big issue, why have politicians government on so little about it in the last 25 years? Because it's very difficult. Solving it is very expensive. So you have to persuade people to pay more tax or save more. Take out insurance policy. However, you want to do it where the private or public sector somebody has to pay for it on. There are huge levels of ignorance in the general population because nobody likes to think about getting old and frail, so they tend not to think about it on. They vaguely think it's free. It comes as a shock to far too many people to discover either. No, no only when their parents have to go through. But sometimes when a themselves have to start thinking about it, that is not all free. It's all slightly opaque. It's not run by the NHS. It's run by local authorities. So there's massive public confusion combined with the underlying fact that solving this problem is expensive. I think the best solution is on the model off the pension system where we have a state pension has been increased a lot in recent years, taking pensions out of poverty. But on top of that, we've now got more than 10 million people saving towards their own pension, which gives them extra peace of mind in old age. I would take the analogy of the pension system into the care system and say we should have a universal care entitlement which will be better funded, and it is now. You will need to pay some more tax of that which everyone is entitled to, but that individuals should be encouraged to take out insurance policies s so that they can know that they will have more choice if they have tohave residential care at some stage, or just more choice, and perhaps mawr home care before they get to that stage on give them peace of mind in old age and certainly the biggest source of wealth, which people could put towards that would be property wealth. And given the huge sums that are in equity for people over the age of 65 who paid off their mortgage, it would take a small sliver of that to solve this crisis so it wouldn't involve people paying their homes. It would involve people using their homes to make a contribution by an insurance policy that would give them complete peace of mind in old age. I'm joined now by Rob Miles, here's head of advisor sales at Legal and General Rob. The equity release market has been growing in recent years would have been the main drivers the last three years. The actually smart as a whole has written four billion in lending, which is a huge amount. You go back for five years and we're looking at probably 23 billion so big growth in the area and the reason for that I think 33 main reasons. One these low than ever. Interest rates We now sub 3% interest rates fixed for life and fix for life is the key misses their real security and stability for clients. The second reason is around the Equity Release Council on the regulation and governance that really give customers credibility and security when looking at the equity release proposition. And finally, for me, the most important is the sophistication of products now really allowing clients to look at what is there needing to dio and rather than sort of pigeon hole one product into their requirements. There's a whole range of options now, which allow clients to cascade wolf down through generations to help grandchildren get on the property ladder Fund for care both in the House and in a care home. Also just basically providing more income in retirement, on using property as a genuine assets rather than just bricks and mortar, which historically has been viewed. I'm joined now by Chris Pond. He is chairman of the Standards Board at the Equity Release Council. What Chris had just been up on stage at the equity release conference would have been your main messages to delegates. The key message today is that the extremely sector has grown exponentially, and that's a reflection of the fact that it does meet a very important public purpose, only meeting the costs of long term care but also helping to supplement retirement incomes. But that growth has also been supported by the fact that this is now seen as a product on the service, which is much safer then it was perceived to be in the past. So years ago, when I worked in the Financial Services Authority, I remember being wheeled out as the consumer affairs director to warn against the dangers Vector released that was back in 2000 and eight. Nowadays is quite different because of the standards and protections that we have in place. It's a much safer products, even the mainstream, more pigeons on. That's a recognition of the fact that many of the people who are accessing that support are by definition, more vulnerable. The older sections of the population on Where's the Proof? Given what you've said, that this is about higher standards, a touch of complacency. I think it is a better industry in the sense that as the Hector Sant's was saying this morning as the chair of the money in pension of service that we need to be thinking about long term will be long term, financial well being on. That's what this sector excels at. It's not simply Trans. Actually, it's not flogging a product to somebody in one meeting thistles, recognizing that people's needs run over a number of years and sometimes decades on that, we have to respond to that. And I think all the evidence is that that is happening in terms of the press response in terms of the response we get from the consumer bodies on from the regulators and government on, Given what we've been discussing, what's the standards board doing? We've just issued on updated set of standards, which are very much principles and outcomes based or not, the rules based standards that used to exist in the old ship days. But it's recognizing that this is a growing sector is an increasingly innovative sector on what we're aiming at is to make sure that there are fair and good outcomes for customers. So our standards, which were launched in January, make sure that while firms operate according to a set of principles, they also make sure that they do recognize the need for customer protection and, indeed, to provide that long term financial well being for customers. John Godfrey is the director of corporate affairs, illegal in general. He also used to be the head of the policy unit at number 10 and he joins me now. John, you've just got off stage from the equity release conference. Your main messages to the delegates. The main message, really, is that equity release on Lifetime mortgages sits at the intersection, really, of three of the biggest issues or challenges were dealing with at the moment. One is the aging demographic and the fact people are living longer and not always in great health, so they have higher care accounts. The second is that we have to address shortfalls we have in our built environment. On the 3rd 1 is that we have Teoh tackle climate change on equity release because it can liberate useful money, which is currently tied up in relatively unproductive assets, can help us tackle all of those three issues. Do you think that there's a danger that equity release ends up trying to do a job? The government should be doing it just hasn't got the courage to put it to the voters. Will Equity release isn't the whole answer, But it's part of the answer, and I think for it to work really well. As part of that answer, it has to work in partnership, a constructive collaboration with government. So you need to have the right policy nudges, for example, if you're going to try to use MAWR equity release for retrofitting of older energy. Inefficient housing. Nigel Mills MP is part of the work and pensions selectivity. He joins me now, Nigel. What role does equity release play when it comes to retirement provision? What role should it be? Playing perfectly important situations that people understand all the assets and all the income they'll have in retirement and then can make an informed choice. How best to use it and I think is the You keep going on and there are fewer people with decent final salary pensions. They're gonna have to look more broadly for how they from their retirement and then their house. Their main asset will have to come as part of that. They can either do that by downsizing that many people you really don't want to leave their their family homes. If they need to unlock some of the wealth in it, then equity release is one of the solution. So the key important thing is that we have well regulated products that are properly sauce. People understand what they're doing. They understand what the implications are. You understand what it means for when they die in their Children. Inherit the house. If we can get along that equity release has a currently important and over the future increased the important role to play in people having these sort of retirement in the standard of life that they want. Steve Groves is the chairman off Retirement Bridge on Key Group on He joins me Now Steve is a product. Provide a house. Easy Is it bean for you to create products in what's been essentially a policy vacuum when it comes to social care. Yeah, it's a really good quest is incredibly difficult operating a policy vacuum generally, if you look on the care side Over the last 10 15 years, consumers have all believed that care would be paid for by the government. They therefore you've had to take him through an additional step in additional journey off, telling them the government's not going to pay for it, evidencing it quite often, letting them go to the government and apply for the funding finite. They're getting rejected, and then you can start to engage in terms of the Mount off work that you have to go through a zone organization. It probably multiplies it by three. Whatever governments doing or not doing. Do you think you've got the key product blocks in place to help out when it comes to social care? Yes, By and large, I think there's two building blocks that I think hold a lot of potential. One is is actually releasing particularly lifetime mortgages, which will allow people in retirement turn illiquid assets into liquid assets. On the second is a product called immediate needs annuities, which, broadly speaking pe care fees for life. You pay a single premium up front, and when you go into care, they then pay your care fees for the rest of your life. I think those will be the two building blocks of any solution that the insurance industry delivers out. Social care is reformed. I'm joined now by Clare Singleton. She is the CEO at Legal and General Home Finance. Claire is equity release, the solution to the intergenerational unfairness conundrum that that is a really difficult conundrum. Equity Reese could definitely play a really key part in our future economic look around that issue. So I mean, if you look at the number of people here struggling to get on the housing ladder, even if you take into kind first time buyer incentives, they're still going to be a large number of people who really can't get on the property ladder in a reliant on their family to put down a deposit. Until that's where Equity Release can really come into play. Releasing equity in a property where that is an asset that the family had in order. Teoh alloy grand parents or parents passed their equity dying to their Children, t join, deposit and get on the housing ladder. I think that really is something where we could be doing more on. It should be a use that we're really focusing on for equity release. We're hearing a huge amount about climate change these days. What sort of impact is that likely to have down the line on housing stock on mortgages on equity release product. I think 1/5 of the UK gas greenhouse gas emissions come from domestic properties on, so there really is something more that we could be doing there. And I mean, my colleague, I think John Godfrey, talk to buy this in one of the sessions earlier. We really need to look up what we can do in terms of growing a scalable more and for retrofitting. I think equities lease can play a big part in that. So taking funds to retrofit voices, helping the customer do that. And but by various tax incentives on ensuring that is done in the right way in terms of very credible suppliers that convert your houses, it really makes an impact not just for the property price but also in terms of addressing a key Schafer for the upcoming generations, who will inherit those properties on. It would be excellent if they could be in a really great energy efficient state when they're passed on. Andrew Morris is an equity release advisor at age partnership, and he joins me now, Andrew what? Your clients telling you that they want from equity release? So one of the biggest things we found in the last year is gifted. So where people look into help help family members in the here and now rather than waiting until the pass away. So we've seen that increased by about 12% in the last year. Such a really big sort movement, people making choices rather than sort of borrowing through necessity. What they're looking to do is actually help people. It's not something that have to do, but it's a case of the borrowing money because they're looking to do things which a nice on How do you as a business, make sure that when you having that conversation around equity release, it's part of a broader conversation about later life planning. Eso age partnership. What we look to do is the calls come into ourselves on. We've got within a partnership. We've got a mortgage department, we've got pensions department and we've got the equity release. So we're looking to have a conversation with the client and find out what their needs are, what's going back. Suit them, whether it's a state pension, mortgage or equity release, or sometimes a combination of one or two of those. I'm joined now by Heather Wheeler MP. She used to be a government housing minister. Will have a give us a bit of an inside from government. What does equity release need to do to be seen as a solution and not a problem? Well, that's a very, very good question. I come to this from my time is Housing Minister, where I had an extremely good open conversation happening with the equity release family on DSO. Changes were made at that point, which meant that arrangements for families to help younger members to get foot on the housing ladder by actually but also Teoh have money put into their own house to future proof it for themselves so that they could not leave if they didn't want to, and finally also then for long term care. So they such a really excellent way for people to look after themselves to manage their own finances. But it gives them help for future life in their own home. On also help for their youngsters as well. So it is a really great way of looking after families going forward and we're ready. Very active release is a product that is there for as many people as possible. Going forward. Jack and Bury is managing director off my care consultant, and she joins me. Now, Jacqueline, you're out seeing clients all day, every day. What's their experience and understanding of the social care system? I think one of the key points to note is that most people find the current system completely confusing. So most people don't plan for care for funding kit on, and they are dealing with this situation at a point of critical need or imminent need. They don't know who to go to to get the information and support that they need to navigate that journey there, often doing it on behalf of a loved one. So you've got the added stress off worrying on confusion and emotion involved with that Andi, most people find when they actually sort of understand how social care funding works, that it's actually quite unfair in terms of what's available on, of course, how much it costs. I mean, we're standing in London today. Presidential annual fees in a care home, £50,000 pretty average. To be honest on, makes people don't have sufficient income to cover that. So what they're looking for is somebody Teoh provide the mid information guidance that's reliable on that can translate the theory into practice, which is arguably one of the biggest challenges we see consumers facing how to consumers go about getting that information and advice because not all of them have got or can afford advisers. Most of our enquiries come three financial advisors, and it's a tiny, tiny section off sort of overall consumer. Pull off those in need I mentioned earlier. I think it could be an opportunity here for the likes of Maps and Teoh. Expand on there already good pension offering in terms of information and advice, but also potentially look to provide a basic level of information around care, social care, health care and then sign post citizens. Teoh experienced care navigators where they can actually get back practical support that they so desperately need. But you're absolutely right. There is no doubt that one of the biggest issues is people don't know where to go on unless they're referred to a navigator like our sore and experience adviser. They don't know that service exists. Craig Fulton is business development manager. App. Your retirement and he joins me. Now, Craig, we're hearing so much more about the digital world, the advanced the Internet. What impact is that beginning toe have on equity release? Certainly a significant one. I mean, we actually did a presentation a little earlier, which was very much about leaving stereotypes at the door. I think generally a lot of people perceive the older demographic of customer over the age of 55 maybe a little bit on savvy when it comes to tech, where finding is Actually, it's the reverse. They've got much more time on their hands to be able to embrace technology. They're going on social media that they're actually in one particular exchange, the fastest growing demographic on Twitter. Um, so really, What we were saying Teoh to the delegates was number one to be using technology and digital footprint in terms of being able to embrace that culture and be a Teoh. Reach those customers but also from an advertising point of view and generating leads as well. It probably only accounts for about 1% of digital marketing when you looking at social media, certainly an area that we think a lot of brokers could exports their advantage, but not necessarily just from a business generated point of view to actually educate the public were shaking the shackles off the stigma that used to be attached to equity release. But as an industry, we need to get that message further and wider on as a result. Social Platforms concert help us do that from our side of things. We actually work with a lot of brokers in supporting them, because a lot smaller brokers might not have the budgets in the departments to be able to embrace media in that way, way actually do a lot of work with them to be able to help you along their way. Get that message out there on ultimately be able to cultivate a little bit more business as a result, to discuss how vulnerable consumers are to making the wrong financial choices. I'm joined now by Martin Lines, he's business development director. Just how vulnerable are thing I think is lots of consumers are vulnerable or potentially vulnerable. The FC a figure is an estimate around 50% on valuable clients could be vulnerable for lots of different reasons, whether that be through health reasons. Would it be a physical ailment or even things like mental health or stress anxiety, depression, mobility issues, all kinds of things to do with health. It could make people's decision making difficult in some circumstances. Then you've got things like life events. You know what might have happened to an individual in terms of redundancy, divorce, bereavement, a whole host of things that could impair someone's decision making or maybe change their priorities around their finances and how they might respond to different things. You've got things like financial capability or capability. In general. You know somebody's understanding of finance, you know, What's that like? Do they understand their finances to the same level that advisors? Perhaps they think they understand what's their capability in dealing with some of these life events as well? So a couple of bits on that as well on resilience. So financial resilience, How would they cope if they lost their main source of income? How long would they be able to manage around asking for help but also resilience to, you know, emotional resilience and some of things that they might be encountering during that life journey as well? And do we need to change our approach on take into account client circumstances? which might not be financial issues they're facing. But it might be, for example, the fact that they've become a care or something like that other things up. Putting pressure on the individual, which might cause and to need extra help, interact with them in different ways on just take that level of extra care around that individual in their circumstances. So there are many things that could, you know, lead to poor outcomes that might otherwise be the case. On the whole, the inability of gender is around advises engaging with clients to make sure that no one is excluded from financial advice. Everyone's getting the quality of information service. It's understandable in the former. That means they need it on, you know, contributes to financial well being. Head of Sales for Equity Release at Canada Life is less pick and he joins me now. Well, that's what are you doing? Is a product provider to support advisers in this space. Over the last two or three years, we've had a comprehensive set of training events across the country, helping advisors to get qualified first. Instance secondly, to ultimately be out to go out there and vice safely so we do our second standards workshops, which are designed to help advise ago from being qualified to be incompetent. So have your vulnerable customers. Details around the capacity act, state benefits analysis, that kind of thing on, then all the way through to the generation workshops. So what says once they're up and running and they're competent on there, they're able to conduct business safely. Then we like to get busy. Hopefully, that will be good for the entire sector, not just ourselves on how big the thing that gap is between qualification and competency these days. Probably 10 years ago, it wasn't such an issue. But now there are 3 400 different products, lots of different flexibilities and features. I think I think people, especially post pension freedoms, people's retirement planning situations tend to be far more complicated now. So I think that the the standard exams that the advisers have taken don't necessarily equipment with a lot of the competency they would need At the moment. There's a gap. That is something lenders are doing our best to. Try and try and bridge. I'm joined now by Donna Bathgate. She is the chief operating officer at the equity release Counsel Donna Getting equity release right is so important for advisors. So how can you? Is the Equity Release Council helped to ensure that advisors have got the right level of competence? Good question. The financial planning landscapes are changed quite significantly over the last decade. And consider the economic and socio economic backdrop I am financial advisors have actually got are fundamentally and difficult scenario in order to work through. I am many off the financial advisors here. Our special ISMs are in a number of different ideas and bought ours. The economic drivers change. They're diversification off their off their business models also change. So we've seeing quite a lot off the advisers shifting within the market itself, and we recognize that as a standard be they are and conscience over market. That's demographic and often ageing population. It's important that we helped guide those people in order to achieve best practice and good standards. So the competence part of law is really rather important, and we've been working with a law off specialists and the market have been doing this for many years in order to help harness knowledge and the expertise that they hold to share and same post and gave those were looking to enter the market, maybe for the first time, or maybe to diversify their business models. And so we're actually looking to deliver our competency framework A for the financial advisor community within actually under actually the leader like financial planning because it's important we understand where that sets and we will up to be expanding up further date. Teoh. Look at the legal advice because that's obviously an important factor in in our standards within the actually some vitamins competences, important qualification important. But when you're actually there on the grind but the Scharping and you're dealing, you've got consumer who's depending on you. It's important that you can 19 ond expand and continually develop your own competence in the job that you do. Donna Bathgate Thank you and thank you. In order to consider the viewing of this academia video as structured learning, you must complete a reflective statement in order to demonstrate what you've learned and its relevance to you. By the end of this session, you should be able to understand and to describe what the current thinking is on social care policy and how public policy is impacted by an ageing population. Then we look at the role of equity releases, a solution and how clients can view it as a product before finishing with a look at the support that's available to advisors. Please complete your reflective statement to validate your CPD.

 

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