Preparing for later life

The days of a pension being the only means of retirement planning are long gone, with the younger generation...

Women born in the 1950s must face the harsh reality that their state pension age is increasing, and despite a recent challenge...

Let’s face it; MiFID II is never going to make the shortlist for ‘The Booker Prize’ is it? It’s a horribly complex read...

Support services available through protection plans can offer your clients something they might not expect and could help you build long-term...

Millennials are known as ‘generation rent’, sometimes criticised for spending too much money on take away and avocados...

Annuities continue to play an important role in retirement planning, especially when it comes to securing a guaranteed income in later life.

Many better-off clients are understandably focused on how they can maximise contributions into their own pension.

When you hear the words ‘mortgage protection’ what do you instinctively think of?

There’s never been a more important time for business owners to consider buying business protection.

Royal London look at how a change in relationship status later in life can impact financial planning for your clients.

At the moment the talk of the pensions world is the complex tapered annual allowance which can leave higher earners with hefty tax bills.

An increase in the state pension age – as the one recently proposed which would see retirement set at 75 by 2035...

How are protection providers meeting the mental health needs of millennial clients? Mark Taylor finds out.

Nobody really doubts that Pensions Dashboard will be good for most consumers.

Everyone wants a comfortable retirement, but not everyone has planned for it. How can the baby boomers make the best of their twilight years...

My career has taken an unusual path over the past 24 years having started out at a life office in direct sales...

Perhaps income protection and critical illness cover could be even more important than life insurance for your clients.

In all the conversations about delays, regulation and consultation it’s easy to lose track of what the Pensions Dashboard project is going to ...

The average private pension wealth of Generation X is £70,400, but is this enough to ensure a comfortable retirement, asks Victoria Ticha?

When it comes to choosing a protection provider, what does the Baby Boomer generation prioritise, asks Saloni Sardana?

Protection providers are wooing Generation X customers with added benefits, but is it working, asks Damian Fantato?

Auto-enrolment has started millennials on the pensions saving journey but the industry needs to do more to help them reach their destination...

Helping your clients manage their money in retirement would be a lot easier if we, or they, knew how long they were likely to live.

What’s the news in protection? On the surface you could be forgiven for thinking there isn’t anything new...

The type of life events that protection covers may not make for a cheery conversation, but advisers must review the protection needs...

First-time parents often underestimate many costs so some careful financial planning is a good idea, writes Simoney Kyriakou

Steve Webb looks at how advisers differ in their approach to pension transfer and whether there's a need for standardisation.

When two of my closest friends recently told me they were having a baby I was over the moon for them.

For many millennials, holiday and mobile phone insurance is more important than income protection and critical illness cover...

Renovating a home could have an impact on your client’s savings and income.

Millennials are a scary bunch aren’t they? They’re more demanding of businesses that they deal with, are less loyal to brands, and...

Self-employed workers may not believe they need protection but may leave themselves financially vulnerable...

Women’s pension savings have fallen woefully behind men’s pension pots in terms of size. So how can women prepare themselves...

The week before I started at Royal London didn’t quite go to plan - instead of preparing and calming my nerves, I was facing one of the worst weeks...

I can still remember the day the doctor told me, “you’ve got type 1 diabetes and it’ll be with you for the rest of your life”.

Millennials may think they can rely on a substantial inheritance to fund their later years. But this could be risky

Protection is not high on clients’ list of priorities but it should be. The industry needs to work to raise awareness of the many benefits.

I’ve just recently returned to work following 11 months of maternity leave with my second child.

Baby boomers might be labouring under a mistaken belief that insurance companies just aren’t interested in them. But they are wrong.

My mum recently had a spell in hospital. I won’t go into all the detail but the crux of it was she had a degenerative condition which affected...

Young people are not immune to life’s twists and turns, so they need to make sure they have decent income protection, writes Ellie Duncan

House prices continue to rise in many parts of the UK with cities like Manchester recording increases of 6.6% and higher in the last year, according to...

How advisers can help older clients prepare themselves for retirement

Proposals to change the way auto enrolment works have been published by the Department for Work and Pensions.

How to help the ‘sandwich generation’ – the Just About Managing middle aged – to make the most of their pension pots.

Steve Webb offers a potential solution to the issue of funding long-term care, by asking whether it’s time for the ‘care pension’.

Yesterday I witnessed an accident between a small family car and a huge lorry making deliveries in the city centre.

Getting young people thinking about long-term pension planning is a challenge especially where technical language is concerned.

I’ve just returned from a mini-break in Tenerife. Twenty girls on a hen weekend, so you can imagine there was a fair bit of eating, drinking...

There’s no avoiding the fact that life can be a risky business. You only have to tune into news reports to see how easily and unexpectedly...

When it comes to pensions, we are told to start accumulating as early as possible. But what if life didn’t pan out like that for...

We consider the progress of the FCA’s Advice Unit as well as the most recent proposed guidance on insistent clients.

In an age of seemingly endless distractions getting the attention of your audience can seem daunting.

The so-called squeezed middle need to consider various protection options, writes Ellie Duncan.

Millennials have to work longer and save harder if they are to have a financially secure retirement, Simoney Kyriakou reports.

I recently got married, and my husband and I realised that as a result we should review our wills – not one of our most romantic moments...

A few months ago my brother casually dropped into conversation that he hoped it was ok that he’d put me down as the guardian of his...

Benefit crystallisation events and the lifetime allowance charge - all you need to know.

It is never too late to buy protection to help you in later life. Ellie Duncan reports.

At Royal London, we have a tool on our adviser website that shows the relative risks of death, critical illness, or being unable to work...

Royal London commissioned Opinium to run our State of the Protection Nation research to find out how people felt about their own protection…

Getting the so-called Generation X to save more into their pensions, at a time when they might be most financially stretched, is a challenge.

The Retail Distribution Review (RDR) brought many benefits to the UK pension industry, but it also created an advice gap…

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has taken the step of naming and shaming employers who have been served County Court Judgments (CCJs)...

The Retail Distribution Review (RDR) brought many benefits to the UK pension industry, but it also created an advice gap, resulting...

Royal London commissioned Opinium to run our State of the Protection Nation research to find out how people felt about their own...

Our latest policy paper reveals what the fall in the savings ratio does (and doesn’t) mean.

Transfers from Defined Benefit (DB) schemes are a bit of a hot topic just now. In this article we look at a couple of factors that could prevent a transfer...

Rather than putting younger people off pension saving, an increase in auto-enrolment contributions appears to be encouraging a whole...

New research shows those customers who receive financial advice can be better off on average by £40,000.

Transfers to overseas pension schemes are not recognised transfers unless the transfer is to a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme.

In an ideal world clients would be able to afford as much protection cover as they wanted.

What does it actually mean for consumers and advisers and has the face of the typical renter changed?

Do you consider yourself lucky?

Family planning is not just about how to pay for 2.4 kids and a dog; it’s about creating sustainable wealth that can pass through the generations.

There are many reasons advisers should help older clients with insurance needs.

We’re all familiar with one of the key barriers to people taking out protection – affordability.

A look at guidance available to pension transfer specialists (PTS).

We’re sure you’ve heard your customers say ‘but insurance companies don’t pay claims’ when giving a reason for not wanting to take out protection.

Three million workers missing out on £2 billion of 'buy-one, get-one free cash' from their employers.

We look at the reasons and what the impact could be.

New HMRC figures show number of ‘mothers missing out on millions’ in pension rights has doubled in two years – Steve Webb

800,000 people at risk of being over-taxed on their pensions – Steve Webb, Royal London Director of Policy writes

What do the changes to capped drawdown maximum income calculations mean for you?

…are protection products providing an adequate solution?

We want to make trusts as easy as possible for you.

You might think the question in the title is a strange one.

Millennials have enough to worry about instead of thinking about retirement. Simoney Kyriakou reports.

Jamie Clark gives the lowdown on what happens when an employer fails to pay auto-enrolment fines.

More people are using income drawdown than ever before...

We look at how higher DB transfer values could cause a lifetime allowance issue and how that affects the advice process.

Do guarantees benefit customers and if so, when?

We've received lots of queries on scheme pays and when it can be used. This article explains how it works and the conditions which apply.

Less than 5% of our personal protection plans are written in trust.

The buy-to-let market has been the subject of a raft of tax changes all of which make it a less profitable and less appealing proposition for investors.

Having reached a certain age, I’m having to come to terms with the fact that my peers and I aren’t as immune from illness or death as we’d like to think.

We take a look at the main findings into the collapse of BHS and the impact on its pension scheme, the Work and Pensions Select Committee.

What does generation rent actually mean for consumers and advisers and has the face of the typical renter changed?

It’s part of Britain's quirky cultural behaviour – like forming orderly queues, or saying sorry when it’s not our fault.