Annuity sales rise 22% at L&G

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 …

Second-hand annuities – Pro’s and Con’s

The government has stated that from 2017 pensioners will be able to sell their annuities for a lump sum. This would extend pension freedoms to those who’ve already bought a guaranteed income. But can it really work? We wonder… When pension freedom arrived in April 2015, many people missed out. Those who had already bought a guaranteed income no longer …

Enhanced Annuity providers to merge

Specialist annuity providers Just Retirement and Partnership are planning a £1.7bn merger. The Enhanced Annuity providers are to merge and become the JRP Group, it has been announced today. The companies would raise £150m in equity even though they anticipate annual savings of £40m at a one-off cost of £60m. Both are comfortably capitalised on paper. But meeting the EU’s …

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 …