Phil Naylor, Director of Legal & General’s Individual Retirement Solutions business commented:
“Legal & General fully supports the proposed new requirement, as part of the Retirement Choices Code, for members to ensure that customers approaching retirement have an informed conversation about their retirement options.
Legal & General raised the proposal of the industry introducing the opportunity of people approaching retirement to have ‘at least a 15 minute conversation’ at an event held earlier this year. It is excellent to see acceptance and recognition of the value of for this proposal, so quickly.
We believe that offering customers approaching retirement the opportunity to receive impartial advice or guidance, particularly if it is not possible for them to receive independent financial advice, or to have a conversation with their provider, will help people to understand the importance of the decisions that they are taking and for them to become more engaged in arranging their retirement income.
Legal & General is already in discussions with The Pensions Advisory Service, TPAS, to establish a pilot in the next few months to test the most effective way of offering, what we and TPAS, believe will be a crucial additional service in the decision making process for customers approaching retirement in the future. We believe a conversation, which will provide a high-level overview of all the retirement income options available to them, will help to ensure that more people make informed decisions and so have the best outcome possible.
Just to be clear, as part of the pilot, we will continue to stress to customers the value of seeking independent financial advice and the importance of shopping around. The 'at least 15 minute conversation’ will be an additional service to the existing options available to customers.”
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