Inform 1st September 2023

Royal London has made a series of improvements to its non-medical limits for life cover.

These improvements will affect the medical tests that Royal London requires to offer coverage.

These tests vary depending on the amount of cover the customer wants and how old they are.

Royal London explained the improvements will enable it to increase the speed in which it can offer cover to customers and its straight through acceptance rates.

It additionally said its main change has been to increase the sum assured at which Royal London first requires routine medical evidence.

There are improvements across all age bandings and the level of sum assured to age 60.

For example, for customers aged 29 or under, the initial threshold for non-medical limits evidence has been increased from £900,001 to £1,000,001.

Additionally, a number of changes to the type of medical evidence requested at certain limits was also announced.

These include replacing longer paramedical examinations with shorter mini-screen examinations and replacing ECG requests with a simple NT-proBNP blood test.

Another announced change was a reduction in the number of GP reports required.

Royal London chief underwriter, Craig Paterson, commented: “We continue to focus on improving our customer journey to make it quicker and easier for customers to obtain cover in the shortest time possible.”

Paterson added that the company’s latest enhancements “not only make life cover more accessible”, but will also reduce requests to General Practioners, thereby helping to reduce the demand on the NHS.

Barclays

Maturity Data September – December

Did you know?… analysis of the market suggests that between September 2023 and December 2023 over £94 billion worth of residential mortgages and almost £13.9 billion worth of Buy-to-Let deals are coming to the end of their terms.

Learn all about what the current landscape for remortgaging looks like with Barclays Maturity Data research.

The Leek Building Society offers via its Intermediaries a regulated Family BTL, take a closer look and see how this could benefit your clients in this situation. This means a Family Member may live in the Buy to Let and the rental calculations are a bit different to a standard BTL.

Please get in touch and speak with us on 0808 291 9309 or email us at intermediary.mortgages@leekbs.co.uk

As part of their continued commitment to common-sense lending, Accord are pleased to let you know they’re making it easier to use different income streams for affordability assessments.

What’s changing?

To help brokers help more clients with differing circumstances, Accord is increasing flexibility on affordability assessments by accepting additional income types and some benefits. This includes zero hours contracts for specific keyworkers, Limited company directors’ salary plus their share of net profits, some benefit types and annuities.

When is this change?

They are making this change at 10am on Wednesday 30 August 2023.

The additional income types and benefits they will accept are as follows, along with criteria details:

Zero-Hour contracts for specific keyworkers:

• NHS Bank nurses and locums
• Non-NHS Bank nurses
• Care Home Workers
• Supermarket Workers
• HGV Drivers
• Retained / On-Call Firefighters
• Armed Forces Reserves
• Supply Teachers

Criteria:

• 60% of the income can be used for affordability
• Evidence required – 12 months evidence of sustainable earning on a zero-hour contract basis can be supplied via a P60, copy of the contract and 3 months of payslips to assess sustainability

Limited company director salary plus share of net profit where the shareholding is greater than 50%

• If a Limited company director has more than 50% shareholding, they will consider the use of directors’ salary plus their share of net profits (minus corporation tax) as an alternative to directors’ salary and dividends
• For a joint mortgage application where both applicants are company directors for the same company and individually have less than 50% shareholding but together equal >50% they are able to use share of net profits

Criteria:

• 100% of the income can be used for affordability
• Declare net profits minus corporation tax for company directors only
• Evidence required – as per standard self-employed criteria

5 new benefit types are:

• Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA) including Child Disability Payment (CDP – Scotland)
• Industrial Injury Disablement Benefit (IIDB)
• Carers Allowance
• NI Contributions based Employment Support Allowance (ESA)

Criteria:

• 60% of the income can be used for affordability
• Must be in receipt of other income to use and the benefit income cannot exceed main income
• Evidence required – Award letter for Employment Support Allowance and 3 months bank statements for all other benefits

Annuities as a pension income

• For customers who are already in receipt of an annuity they will treat this the same as pension income

Criteria:

• 100% of the income can be used for affordability
• Evidence required – Latest annuity statement dated within the last 12 months, P60 or payslip

The application forms and accountant’s reference on the website have been updated, previous versions should not be used

What’s staying the same?

All other lending policy remains unchanged.

When is this change?

Accord is making this change at 10am on Wednesday 30 August 2023

At Metro Bank, we are all about providing unparalleled levels of service and convenience to your customers; this means identifying when customers are vulnerable or are at risk of becoming vulnerable.

We have launched a dedicated Vulnerable Customer section on our intermediary website to help you understand how to identify a vulnerable customer and a Mortgage Payment Support page which your customer can visit if they are worried about their finances.

WHAT TO DO WHEN IDENTIFYING A VULNERABLE CUSTOMER

If the customer is happy to discuss and has given their permission, please ensure you record that the customer is vulnerable within the notes section of the mortgage application form, along with any supporting information.

Our Mortgage Servicing Team will give the customer a call back during onboarding to confirm the additional support that we are able to provide.

WANT TO GET IN TOUCH

Get in touch with your local BDM; they would love to hear from you. Find your BDM here. Or call our Broker helpdesk on 020 3427 1019.

We are pleased to announce that on 7th September 2023, we’ll be making changes to enhance our personal and business protection propositions.

Transitional arrangements

Any quotes done before 07/09/2023 will be guaranteed for 30 days however, to secure this quote you will need to do the following:

• Select your chosen quote then click from your chosen portal into the Zurich LPP platform.
• Add the first set of your clients’ personal details and save the application at that stage by using the click, save and exit button in the top right-hand corner. This will then allow you to proceed with this quote at a future date. You can select the quote from ‘your applications’ on LPP.
• From 07/09/2023, you will be able to quote the new proposition through your chosen portal and apply in the normal way

To find out full details of our new proposition, please register for one of our launch webinars, or to learn more visit out official announcement post here.

With effect from Wednesday 30^th August, we’ve increased our maximum mortgage term to 40 years for all new residential applications on a capital repayment basis. Any additional borrowing, either standalone or in conjunction with a remortgage can now also be taken over 40 years.

Please note, for residential applications where there is any element of interest only, the current maximum term of 25 years will continue to apply.

We have also increased the maximum term to 40 years for Buy to Let applications on both capital repayment and interest only.

Our Affordability Calculator and Broker Platform have been updated to reflect these changes, so you don’t need to input anything differently, and our Broker website will be updated shortly.

Lending into retirement reminder

As part of our responsible lending policy the maximum age is dependent on the repayment type, and subject to meeting our maximum term and lending into retirement criteria.

More information on our lending into retirement policy can be found on our website.

Further information

Chat with us or call our Broker Support Team on 0345 600 5847 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).

Pure Retirement are inviting advisers to join them for the first in their two-part webinar series with leading care consultancy business My Care Consultant, as part of their ongoing commitment to providing educational resources for lifetime mortgage advisers to enable them to offer effective and holistic advice to later life clients.

Held on the 21st of September, the session will first focus on three aspects of care advice:

• The role of residential property in paying for care including the suitability of equity release
• Appropriate legal advice and mistakes that can be made without due consideration
• How consumer duty impacts equity release advice

Advisers will benefit from access to care-related expertise from a leading operator in this space, enabling them to further their knowledge and client offering.

Don’t miss your chance to attend – you can book your place via their website.