Enhanced annuity rates provider to offer annuity rates to partners. Just Retirement says it is close to agreeing certain new deals to provide enhanced annuities to the customers of up to nine firms, including insurance companies and closed life offices. Just Retirement, which was bought recently by private-equity firm Permira for just about £230m in September, has developed a streamlined processing service for advisers who want to refer on customers with smaller pension funds and is likely to use this service in future arrangements.
Head of annuities at Just Retirement, Peter Ellis, says that they have been looking at ways to take cost out of the annuity writing process for independent financial advisers (IFAs) and have come up with a number of initiatives designed specifically to give them a more simple method of doing annuity business, particularly focusing on smaller funds, which still need to find decent annuity rates. They are also working with a number of firms to deliver a similar type of proposition to groups of customers who are most likely disenfranchised and have never had an IFA. Some will be with what are called closed life funds while some will be with open life offices that do not want to get involved with annuities. They are also talking to affinity groups, which have access to their sort of audience but are not involved in financial services. They hope to be announcing these new relationships in January and February of next year.
