Stonehaven has been announced as the latest Ambassador of the Later Life Academy (LLA), the recently launched commercial and training organisation for later life advisers.
LLA Ambassadors champion not only its philosophy of ‘best practice and excellence’ but will support and assist members in each of their specialist areas.
As a specific Product Ambassador, Stonehaven will work with LLA members to develop understanding of interest-only equity release lending, where the client pays some, or all, of the interest on a lifetime mortgage for a period of their choosing. It will do this through providing ongoing resource and support plus developing learning modules for training sessions which cover this product area.
The Academy was launched at the start of 2014 in order to provide later life advisers with a multi-resourced organisation delivering ongoing training and sales support whilst also offering commercial advantages and closer ties with Product Ambassadors such as Stonehaven. The focus is on raising standards in all areas of later life advice such as equity release, annuities, long-term care, funeral plans, wills, and many more.
LLA membership starts at £20 per individual per month for those firms with over 16 members, rising to £40 per month for individual associate members. All members pay reduced fees to attend individual full or half day training on a variety of modules. Members will also be able to undertake an annual LLA MOT to ensure their market and product knowledge is fully up to date.
Stuart Wilson, managing partner of Equity Advice and Later Life Academy, said: “There are many different product areas within the later life advice sector and it is our aim to develop strong relationships with providers in all of these. Having Stonehaven on board as an Ambassador for interest-only equity release lending covers off a relatively new and unique product set and we will be working with the team there to develop our members’ understanding in this area.
“Our task is to ensure we can raise the overall standards of members by filling the skills gaps they have whilst at the same time helping them develop stronger provider relationships and delivering access to business opportunities they would not normally receive. The Academy has been designed to serve both members and providers in order to produce a marketplace where skill levels are high, understanding has improved and quality counts.
“We are extremely pleased to announce Stonehaven as our next Product Ambassador and are looking forward to them playing a full part in the development of the Academy.”
Georgina Smith, managing director of Stonehaven, said: “Stonehaven is excited to be working with the Later Life Academy. We see this as a great opportunity not only to support the Academy’s principles of best practice and excellence but to also work with the members to help them to grow their businesses by using interest-paying products to widen the audience for equity release.
“We believe that by sharing ideas and pooling expertise we can help to ensure that equity release becomes established as part of a more holistic approach to retirement planning.”
