Stonebridge Group has reported that business volumes in its core mortgage, life/protection and general insurance activities were up considerably in 2016.
Mortgage completions were £4.233 billion for the year, up 53% on the £2.76 billion placed in 2015.
Life business volumes also rose strongly with £11.8 million of life commissions completed during the 12-month period; this was 56% up on 2015’s £7.59 million.
Meanwhile, £731,000 of general insurance business was completed in 2016, up 37.5% on the £532,000 placed through Stonebridge in 2015.
Stonebridge says its continued growth is due to a number of reasons including the rise in active advisers across the Group as well as the increased productivity levels of its member firms.
The network recently announced it had hit the landmark number of 500 active advisers, spread across 226 appointed representative (AR) firms). This is 25% up on the number of advisers at year-end 2015.
2016 was also a significant year for Stonebridge as it launched its Genus proposition for directly authorised (DA) firms. It currently has over 100 advisers using the proposition and anticipates further growth during 2017.
Paul Nye, director of business partnerships at Stonebridge Group and Stonebridge Genus, said: “It’s clearly very pleasing to be able to announce a considerable uplift in our business volumes across our three core product areas in the Group over the course of 2016. Given the way the year panned out with some major political, economic and regulatory shocks, it’s testament to the work of all the advisers within the Group that we are able to show such large percentage gains particularly in terms of our mortgage completions and our life business volumes.
“Looking ahead, it’s our aim to continue to organically grow and develop our proposition, in both the network and DA spaces, and to ensure that we maintain our focus on delivering considerable value and business opportunity for our advisers. 2017 looks to be a year with a great deal of market uncertainty but one which offers real opportunities for advisers with access to the best support and technology. In this regard, our Revolution system is proving a real differentiator when it comes to maximizing business growth and efficiency.
“Our annual conference takes place at the end of this month where we will be announcing our plans for the year ahead, with a number of interesting developments and propositions in the pipeline that we believe will add significant benefit to those advisers using both our AR and DA propositions. We would urge any firm looking at how they can maximise their position within today’s advisory marketplace to contact us to see how we can support their endeavours in 2017 and beyond.”
