Adviser interview: Stuart Grennan

In May, Heath Lambert launched www.heathlambertannuity.com, an online portal aimed at helping people to receive the best annuity quote possible. Director Stuart Grennan tells Helen Morrissey about the service

Why did you decide to launch the site?

The site is live now and we are just doing final testing on it. We did a customer survey and realised the open market option (OMO) was seen as a means by which people transacted the best standard rate annuity.

The enhanced market was being ignored by large sectors of the market so we made sure we linked in with a number of enhanced annuity providers with this portal. I believe we are the first in the UK to offer such a service. 

We operate on the premise that would-be annuitants should not start the process off by looking for a standard rate annuity, you should start by looking for an enhanced annuity so this is where our service starts.

We also start from a joint life standpoint rather than a single life one as many married people will purchase single life annuities without realising the implications for their spouse when they die.

We also need to remember that as customers get more sophisticated they may not wish to get advice or else they cannot afford it.

If you look at ABI stats they say that £7bn has been lost by annuitants who have not shopped around we need to look into how we can empower people to get more from their pensions.

How do you capture the  annuitants’ information?

Enhanced quotes use the Common Request Form which asks for a lot of information that the customer may not have to hand this then becomes a barrier.

We have developed a simple form that contains ten questions that can be answered Yes/No.

We really wanted to move away from long questionnaires so we have a one page questionnaire and one page discharge document so we have taken approximately 30 to 40 pages of documentation out of the process.

This enables those with small funds to get a quote direct from the provider.

For those with funds of less than £40,000 we offer quotes from Partnership on an enhanced basis and Canada Life on the standard products.

We feel this simplicity of process is the best thing for those with small fund values.

For those with plans of £40,000 plus we offer a more whole of market offering. We currently have partnerships with several providers including Partnership, Just Retirement, Hodge Life, Living Time, Prudential, Aviva, Legal & General, Canada Life and Aegon.

The process is very simple. The annuitant starts by inputting their name, address and contact details and they will then be asked if they have any medical issues as well as what pensions they have in existence.

Then they will click through to the medical section.

Here, they will be asked to input information such as height and weight, as well as answering ten questions on health.

From there, they click straight through to quotations. If they want to refine their search further  for instance they may want RPI escalation or a single life pension they can do that.

Once they have put down everything they need, then they can see a full list of providers who can help them.

From here they go through to application. If the person has any questions we do have a contact button on the site so that they can speak to someone.

We make it very clear we have well trained advisers on standby who are able to go through the process with the client and establish what they need.

How long has the website taken to develop?

In terms of the design process, it has probably been 12 months.

The technology needed to power this had not been available before and we also had to make sure that it worked well with the ABI’s Options system as well.

We need to get the industry to change how it perceives the open market option and accept that there is a role for an online system that can be complemented by face to face or telephone advice.

We have linked into a number of medical charities such as Diabetes UK so that they can access the site as part of their medical package. We are also developing relationships with corporate clients.

Stuart Grennan is director at Heath Lambert