Win² in action!
After a long consultation the coalition government have passed the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012 or CIDAR for short. It’s due to come into force from 8th March 2013.
Until now it was up to you as the consumer to tell the insurance company what they needed to know. When facts became clear after the policy was issued that would have influenced the insurance company this was known as “non-disclosure”. In other words you hadn’t disclosed material facts. In that case the legal liability was with the consumer.
Under the new law you’ll still be responsible for taking reasonable care in providing the information you’re asked for. However, it’s up to us as your adviser to ensure we request all the appropriate information.
Enhanced annuity providers estimate that 50% of applicants lose out on vital income because the medical information they gave wasn’t complete.
So what?
We specialise in retirement planning and one area where this will impact on our business is in relation to enhanced annuities. These are the type of pension that takes into account any health or lifestyle issues. In other words you get more income if you are less healthy than the average man or woman your age.
Here at 44 Financial we do a lot of things and are very good, for example, at making tea. However we’re not medical experts. So what we’ve done is to build into our retirement advice service an external interview process for clients who may qualify for an enhanced annuity.
The interview is conducted by a qualified nurse at a time to suit you – even weekends or evenings. We can then make sure that your asked all the right questions (to comply with CIDAR) and also to help make sure you get the maximum amount of income from your pension pot.
Why have you done this?
It’s all part of the Win² philosophy that we use when taking key decisions about our business. Basically if we take decisions that suit us we always try to make sure that our clients benefits too. In other words – it’s got to be a win-win situation for both of us.
In this case we make sure we’re complying with the CIDAR law, Financial Services Authority regulations and, at the same time, our clients get the as much income as they can when they retire.
That’s Win² in action! Simple isn’t it? For us, yes; but for many of our larger competitors it seems a struggle to make sure that the clients’ interests stay at the heart of what they do.
We’d like to know more about what you’re planning for retirement. If you’d like to know how we can help you pleasecontact us.
Steve Clark