"Currently fewer than 7% of Royal London life policies are written in trust; I hope our new online trust service will help to change that."
The online trust service, powered by iPipeline, hosts a range of the most popular trust forms that advisers would require when placing a life policy in trust and allows advisers to place new business and existing business in trust.
The new service is fully automated and aims to make the process of putting plans in trust easier for advisers, regardless of whether they currently write plans in trust.
Advisers can contact existing clients whose life plans are not written in trust to see if this is something that they now require.
The adviser answers a few questions and is directed to the correct trust form. Once completed, the trust form is sent electronically to the plan owner, then the witnesses and finally the trustees for their e-signature.
The five main trusts available on the system are: Relevant Life Trust; Business Trust; Gift Trust - Discretionary; Split Trust - Discretionary; and Split Trust – Jointly owned survivor to benefit Discretionary.
Ian Smart, Product Architect at Royal London, commented: “Writing a policy in trust ensures the proceeds go to the correct beneficiary and the wishes of the policyholder are carried out. The ability to write existing life business in trust is unique in the protection market. Currently fewer than 7% of Royal London life policies are written in trust; I hope our new online trust service will help to change that. The system is designed to ensure trust forms are completed and signed in the correct order; and we can track the progress online too. We will be looking to add further trusts to the service in the future.”
Ian Teague, UK Managing Director, iPipeline, said: “Delivering the digital trust form capability using iGO technology has followed an agile delivery with minimal IT resource required and impact on infrastructure. Providing advisers with this functionality has removed a potential barrier to the uptake of placing life assurance in trust, something which we believe is industry best practice in most cases.”
Emma Thomson, Life Office Relationship Director at LifeSearch, added: “This is a fantastic initiative from Royal London. Even after being informed about the benefits, too few clients put their plans into trust because the process is cumbersome and confusing. This new online trust process, that uniquely can be utilised pre and post risk, will make a huge difference to intermediaries trying to help more of their clients put their plans into trust, and I hope other insurers will follow suit. It’s very welcome news indeed for consumers and more importantly, their families.”
