Air Group publishes adviser analysis of lender service levels

The service analysis has been designed to give smaller advisers a collective voice in terms of providing feedback on providers’ service levels.

Almost 200 smaller advisers who account for 8% of the plans taken out in H1 2020 rated providers they had used on four key service areas and three net promoter factors.

The providers whose service levels were reviewed as part of the ‘Temperature Check’ in the first half of 2020 were Aviva, Canada Life, Hodge, Legal & General, LV=, Just, One Family, more2life and Pure Retirement.

The top three lenders for service were Canada Life, Legal & General, and more2life (8.29). more2life came out top for ease of application and speed of pre-offer process, while L&G was top for speed of post-offer process and Canada Life was voted best at communication.

The net promoter factors included 'would recommend', 'values my business' and 'goes the extra mile. The top three lenders overall were Pure Retirement, more2life and Canada Life.

Canada Life was the most recommended, and Pure Retirement took the top spot in the other two categories.

Air Group said it will run this analysis again next year to cover the second-half of 2020 and to regularly track provider service levels while delivering ongoing feedback from advisers.

Stuart Wilson, CEO of Air Group, commented: “2020 is turning out to be an extraordinary year for many reasons, and because of this we believe it’s absolutely vital that advisers and equity release providers work closely together in order to help support each other, and to ensure that their clients continue to get access to the best products and service available in the marketplace.

“Many advisers active in the equity release sector are small and medium-sized firms and our new ‘Temperature Check’ means we can offer them a collective voice and help drive up service standards in our sector. Effectively we are creating a platform to collate, analyse and track feedback, and to encourage providers to take this on board and, where necessary, react to it.

“We’d like to congratulate all the providers who feature in our inaugural ‘Top Threes’ for overall, net promoter and individual categories as this represents a significant achievement and is a mark of the time, effort and ongoing resource that is committed to delivering strong service.

“Given the time period that this ‘Temperature Check’ covers, any provider making the top three in any of our categories deserves considerable praise. The national lockdown put a significant amount of pressure on all equity release providers and to maintain a strong level of service throughout that is testament to the commitment these teams have shown to the market.

“The ‘Temperature Check’ is a mechanism to highlight excellent service levels within the sector, and to present advisers’ views and, by doing so, help all providers move both their overall and category scores up in the future.

“This is now an exercise we will repeat every half-year and we are confident that by sharing this analysis Air Group can continue to help providers drive up their service standards and outputs to an even higher level.”