then learning how to have the emotional conversation with clients is the second step. He was used to transactional conversations. To help someone in the equity release space you need to have a much more emotional conversation. That’s a completely different skill set. Dealing with that challenge is really what the industry should be focusing on if we’re going to grow. DM: With the market fundamentals only getting stronger as people live longer and retirement periods get longer there’s clearly scope for customers needing a range of different product options. We have draw down and lump sum products but we should be asking ourselves if there is more room for innovation. Last year somewhere in the region of
an amount of money either on a regular basis or in a lump sum to deal with a particular scenario. The products out there do achieve that. One of the biggest challenges is helping brokers understand how to talk about equity release with their customers. Speaking to a broker recently about
equity release I could see the light bulbs coming on as I explained what the product could do for people and he said, “Oh, so I should be doing this because it’s actually a service to my community?” Understanding that is the first step but
20,000 plans were taken out so you could argue that’s the demand today, irrespective of the percentage of the potential market that makes up. The question I’d ask is whether developing new and flexible products will prompt more demand than this. SL: I think we may be at a point in the history of equity release where we have to evolve to create new demand from clients. Draw down was innovative in its time but we’re now seeing the baby boomers come on stream and I think there’s potential from this group to demand a vastly different sort of product
than we’ve seen before in equity release. Part of that is removing certain barriers, one of which might be people’s reluctance to lose a big part of their inheritance. VO: There is room for innovation but I have to say when I go out to brokers I’m not hearing them saying, I wish you had a product that did this or that. If we’re going to innovate on this side I’m very happy to hear from advisers with ideas to address certain consumer needs and then we can start thinking about how we would deliver it.
if brokers aren’t engaging With providers on product that suggests consumers aren’t engaging about their needs in this space? JW: It seems to me that equity release is a product there is a consumer need for but the consumer doesn’t really understand how or why they need it. The key to classical marketing success is to tell people about the right thing at the right time. It’s a bit like having designed a really good gadget that you know people could use and putting in a shop where the sales people don’t know how to explain it and the customer doesn’t know it exists or what it could do for them, so you hardly sell any.
mortgage introducer MARCH 2011 39
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