LATEST PARTNER BLOGS:
Lendinvest
How bridging offers a path to certainty in 2024
Guardian
Helping advisers explain the cost of childhood cancer to clients
The Loans Engine
Unlocking opportunities in a challenging market
Hodge
Another key criteria enhancement
Metro Bank
Buy-to-Let (less than 15 minute webinar)
Back by popular demand… We will be hosting ‘Metro Bank Talks…Buy to Let’ next week which will focus on our recently enhanced stress rates, including Top Slicing, and how this works in conjunction with our existing policies.
Tuesday 16 January
9.30am – 9.50am
Thursday 18 January
2pm – 2.30pm
Vitality
Five facts about Vitality’s Serious Illness Cover
Our Serious Illness Cover is more than just a different name for critical illness cover. By adopting an alternative approach to how the product works, more aligned to the trends shaping our world and the evolving needs of today’s consumer, Serious Illness Cover can help to deliver better outcomes and more relevant cover for your clients.
- Your clients are more likely to receive a pay-out: Being diagnosed with an illness can have a financial impact at any stage, even if picked up early. This is why our cover offers a severity-based approach across a broader set of conditions, allowing more comprehensive cover and increased likelihood of claim.
- Pays out in full for 74 conditions: Serious Illness Cover 2X and Serious Illness Cover 3X both include 74 conditions where the client will always receive 100% of the sum-assured, including all of the current ABI (Association of British Insurers) minimum standard definitions.
- No arbitrary financial caps on additional payments: Because Serious Illness Cover pays out based on severity, there’s no arbitrary financial caps applied to payments. Instead, the client is paid a percentage of their overall sum-assured, based on how severe their illness is and the potential financial impact.
- Cover doesn’t end after a claim is paid: Unlike almost every other type of insurance, traditional critical illness cover is unusual in that following a full pay-out, cover ceases entirely. This leaves the client uninsured and often uninsurable if they need to obtain further cover after an illness.
With Serious Illness Cover, however, clients can claim multiple times if their condition deteriorates, or they’re diagnosed with a new condition. And, Serious Illness Cover 2X and 3X will pay out the full sum-assured more than once.
- Later life cover is automatically included: Our unique Dementia and FrailCare Cover is now automatically included on Serious Illness Cover, giving your clients the choice to continue their cover beyond the normal term of their plan for longer-term financial protection.
Virgin Money
Increased Terms and Improved Lending Amounts
Our mortgages have made some big moves today. First up, we’ve increased the max term for all our residential mortgages to 40 years. That’s not all, though. We’ve also improved the amount we could lend, by updating our affordability assessment for residential mortgages fixed for 5 years or longer.
It means more of your customers are going to get the loan they need, at the term they want.
Want to know how much we could now lend? Check out our updated lending criteria and affordability calculator.
If you’ve got any questions about anything, your Business Development Manager is just the person to talk to.
Mansfield Building Society
Affordability Boost
Mansfield Building Society has re-launched residential mortgage products linked to a Lifetime Discount follow-on rate that kicks-in after the initial product term ends.
The new Lifetime Discount has been applied to its range of prime residential deals, including its Family Assist, Shared Ownership, Retirement Interest Only and Versatility products.
The follow-on rate has no Early Repayment Charges (ERCs), meaning borrowers will still be able to remortgage to another lender or select one of the Society’s loyalty deals at the end of the initial product term.
Commercial Development Executive, Richard Crisp, said that the Society was responding to help borrowers by reducing the cost of borrowing over the long-term:
“As cost inflation and interest rate rises have continued to stretch household budgets, we wanted to find a way to make home ownership more affordable over the long-term, not just during the initial product term.
“The introduction of our new Lifetime Discount means that borrowers can continue to enjoy access to our range of Discounted or Fixed Rate deals in the knowledge that they will continue to receive a generous discount for the residual term of their mortgage.
“As a result of this initiative, the Society has been able to flex its affordability stress test safe in the knowledge that borrowers with products linked to our Lifetime Discount will continue to pay a rate well below our SVR for the duration of their mortgage.
“We pride ourselves on the flexible solutions we offer to support borrowers and the introduction of our new residential Lifetime Discount rate will ensure that access to our extensive criteria remains an affordable reality for more borrowers.”
A common sense approach
If you’ve got a case on your desk that requires a common sense approach to lending then please pick up the phone to our Broker Support team on 01623 676360 or visit https://www.mansfieldbs.co.uk/intermediaries/.
Loughborough Building Society
Prime Plus
The Loughborough BS have a range of products – prime plus that could support clients that have a complex credit history.
The maximum LTV that we can consider on this application is 70%.
For Shared Ownership, Special Purchase Price, Right to Buy the maximum LTV will be 70% of the reduced purchase price or the share being purchased.
We can consider clients that have:
Arrears – Status 3-6 in the last 2 years
Defaults – Not satisfied on loans or credit card for over 2 years. Defaults on mail order/coms that have not been satisfied 3 months prior to the application.
CCJ’s – Up to 3 CCJ’s satisfied or unsatisfied totalling a maximum of £1,000.
IVA/DMP – Application that are in an IVA/DMP which has not been satisfied for 3 years. Applicants must have conducted this satisfactory for 2 years prior to the application.
Bankruptcy/ Repossession – must have been discharged for over 3 years.
Pay day loans – 2-3 in the last 12 months.
We are now able to accept benefit income with these applications
Hodge
Income Multiples and Maximising Affordability
Lee Weston, our head of business development has put a piece together around income multiples and affordability.
Paymentshield
5 Tips For Success
To maximise the success of your referrals to Paymentshield, here’s five tips to make sure your clients understand and know what to expect from the service they’ll be getting.
Halifax
Multiple products in the transfer window
Following your feedback we are improving the process for customers who have two separate products both ending within the six month PT future dating window.
The new process being introduced will offer you the option to select the same new product for both PTs i.e. we will honour the product secured on the first PT for the second PT.
The first PT application should be keyed online as normal, but you will need to call for us to key the same product for the second PT.
Please see our website for full details of the process to be followed.
Leeds Building Society
We’re putting home ownership in reach of more people
Our Reach Mortgages are a new range of residential mortgages. They’re here to help put home ownership in reach of people who may otherwise face barriers to buying a home.
Guardian
Expanding Product Range: Life Cover
Guardian will be expanding its product range in the coming weeks with the launch of a new low-cost life cover: Life Essentials.
Source
Giving advisers more flexibility over their advised general insurance
Source Insurance are delighted to announce their latest system update with their updated adviser platform; The Source. Collaborating with their specially formed Adviser Insight Forum, Source worked closely with advisers to redesign their well-known quotation system to reflect changes that cater to the evolving needs of advisers, along with their customers.
Buckinghamshire Building Society
Unlock the potential of 3-year mortgages
In a landscape where clients’ needs are as diverse as their dreams, it’s essential to consider all avenues when looking for mortgage solutions.
