Purchased life annuity - can you recommend a broker

Thisisdifficult

Hi, my parents (aged 83 and 89) want to set up a joint purchased life annuity from Aviva, however their in house financial advisor insists on full financial planning, which they don't need, plus they say it will take 12 weeks, by which time the quote will have run out.

Aviva have told me they are not required to go through the financial advice, but that my parents do need an advisor/broker to access their products. So am looking around for an alternative.

I've heard bad things about unbiased.co.uk - can anyone please recommend an advisor/broker that deals with purchased life annuities?

Doesn't matter where it is as it can all be done remotely or over the phone.

I would be most grateful for your recommendations

wjr4

Full financial planning should be default to ensure it’s suitable for the clients. 

Thisisdifficult

Thanks for your reply.

They don't need full financial planning as they are using money that was in another investment and the PLA (using half of the previous investment) will provide a better income. And it has been discussed at length with other people as well.

Can you recommend a broker/advisor?

ob1kinobi

Hello. Some rules my have changed since but I purchased an annuity 2 years ago, but I elected to buy from Canada Life and didnt need to use an advisor or broker.

dunstonh

Hi, my parents (aged 83 and 89) want to set up a joint purchased life annuity from Aviva, however their in house financial advisor insists on full financial planning, which they don't need, plus they say it will take 12 weeks, by which time the quote will have run out.

Full advice makes perfect sense
a) their age 
b) Purchased life annuities are very niche 

It would be pretty high risk to do a PLA where the youngest is 83.  So, the audit trails would certainly want to exist to protect the advice given.

The main distribution for PLAs IFAs.   It's probably cheaper than using Aviva's Salesforce.

I've heard bad things about unbiased.co.uk - can anyone please recommend an advisor/broker that deals with purchased life annuities?

If you have seen recent posts here you will see the way to find local IFAs and avoid the lead generation part of the system that favours the national/regional salesforces.

A recent thread is here: Unbiased and IFA. ?? — MoneySavingExpert Forum
scroll down to find my instructions

Thisisdifficult

The problem with the websites that host databases of financial advisors, is that there doesn't seem to be a way of filtering them so we just end up with those that specialise in PLA.

Does anyone know of an IFA that specialises in this kind of annuity?

dunstonh

Does anyone know of an IFA that specialises in this kind of annuity?

It's not a specialist piece of work.  It's routine for an IFA.   Any general practitioner IFA should do it.  However, avoid the wealth management/consolidator firms.  Their business model is growing assets under management.  Whereas most small independent IFAs (independent as in ownership as well as IFA status) operate under the general practitioner model.

Albermarle

ob1kinobi said:

Hello. Some rules my have changed since but I purchased an annuity 2 years ago, but I elected to buy from Canada Life and didnt need to use an advisor or broker.

You almost certainly purchased an annuity from a pension pot?
This is by far the most common type, and yes you can buy one direct from certain providers.
The OP is talking about a purchased life annuity, where it is bought from non pension related funds.
These are quite rare and can only be bought using an advisor.

Thisisdifficult

Thank you all for your replies.

ob1kinobi - I think it is possible to buy a PLA from Canada Life directly. The trouble is that their quote is not quite as good as Aviva's.

dunstonh - thank you for the advice about who to use and it's good to know that any general IFA can do it, even if it is a rare product.

lutudarum

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81678445#Comment_81678445

It would be interesting to hear what your views are now, several months after your first question. I am considering using a maturing savings account to buy a PLA. Seems there are definite advantages in terms of both income tax and IHT. I just don't understand why it's considered to be a rare niche product since I have seen a number of recommendations online that it's a good idea to use the 25% tax-free lump sum from a pension pot to buy a PLA. The online annuity calculators (and brokers) all seem to be focussed on standard pension annuities and don't even mention PLAs.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82111300#Comment_82111300

One IFA, who is an occasional contributor to the forum, once said that in the years he had been an IFA, he had processed only one request for a PLA.

However like you, I am not really sure why they are such a small part of the annuity market, and largely ignored by most of the big players.