BUSINESS GOES ON – THE WORLD KEEPS SPINNING

Now that most of us are spending most – if not all – of our time at home, the John Lamb Team, have been dealing with the challenges of TEAMS, conference calling and a degree of technical glitches but business goes on, clients still need us and we remain here to help wherever we can.

INSURANCE

The insurance industry remains open and functioning to a degree:

Non-Medical Life Insurance
We can obtain non medical life insurance; this requires a call to take information and provided there are no hitches we will be able to obtain immediate cover.  The amount of cover available is dependant on age and below is an indicative table showing the levels of cover we should be able to obtain – if you or clients wish to explore this do please be in touch: email initially to [email protected] and we will call you back.

Where medicals are going to be required we are delighted to provide quotations, we expect rates will rise at the end of this but if you are planning with clients you may want indicative quotes and we are, as always, very happy to provide these and to discuss options. We expect that people’s perceptions of themselves as immortal may change and demand will be higher with consequent hold ups while we obtain information.

Support from Insurers for your clients
Many insurers now provide medical back up services for anyone with a policy with them (these services include; free GP consultations, counselling services and legal/financial advice), the feedback we have from clients (and our staff) is that it’s a very valuable service. If you or your clients want details of what might be available do please be in touch; [email protected] and we will call you back.

EQUITY RELEASE

Equity Release lending is different to standard mortgage lending in that the exit for the lender is almost invariably going to be a sale of the property and the lender takes the risk of any shortfall in value over and above the mortgage and compound interest. While this “no negative equity guarantee” is very attractive to borrowers, it does mean that condition is very important and lenders need to verify this. Currently valuation visits are on hold but firms are actively seeking a work around.

The Equity Release Council is in discussions as to how they might make the legal side of the process possible without face to face meetings. The outcome of these discussion will be published this week with potential changes coming into effect on Friday 27th March.

Lenders are still accepting new enquiries and applications but cannot progress them to valuation stages and beyond at present.

We think this is going to be a very important market post the crisis as it will enable clients who will have lost significant capital, and are looking at decimated dividends to release cash flow and if you would like to discuss the market and how it can help your clients do please be in touch.

Over the coming weeks, the John Lamb Team, will be hosting a series of webinars to give our professional friends the opportunity to keep up to date on industry developments. Keep an eye out for those invites.

Stay safe. We’re in this together.

If you have any questions, or there is anything we can help with, please do get in touch.