Individual annuity sales jumped 22 per cent last year at Legal and General, latest results show. Bucking a wider market trend of falling sales since the pension freedoms, the insurer put part of the spike down to “increased intermediary presence”. FCA data shows annuity sales from October 2015 to March 2016 for those accessing their pots for the first time …
FCA fines Standard Life Assurance £30m over annuity sales failures
Standard Life has been fined £30.7 million by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over failures in selling non-advised annuities. The regulator took action against Standard Life Assurance, now owned by closed-book pension provider Phoenix, over enhanced annuity sales between July 2008 and May 2016. ‘Standard Life Assurance failed to put in place adequate controls to monitor the quality of the …
Prudential withdraw from Open Market Annuities
Prudential have decided they will no longer sell annuities through advisers or intermediaries via the open market. A spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that we propose to make a change to conventional annuity business written with financial advisers.’ They have decided from the 17th June 2016 ‘we will no longer accept applications for new external conventional annuity business. There is …
Pension Freedom: savers withdraw £1 billion
Since the chancellor, George Osborne announced the government’s new Pension Freedoms in 2014, savers have withdrawn over £1 billion from their pension funds. In response to questions in parliament, Osborne said 60,000 people had made use of the new freedoms, which allows savers to access their whole pot from the age 55. It’s the first time the government has disclosed …
Five reasons to buy a pension annuity
After a lifetime accumulating pension savings, you reach the point when those savings must provide a regular income for your retirement. Recently the options have become much broader, but the most traditional route – the annuity – is refusing to go quietly. Here’s why. Consider your pension fund, built up over a working lifetime. On retirement, you could simply draw …