Q&A with Holly Hill, Associate Director at John Lamb Hill Oldridge

In this new series of Q&A articles, you can learn more about our esteemed team members who ensure that our clients receive the very highest level of service.

Holly Hill is an Associate Director at John Lamb Hill Oldridge. Since joining the team in 2022, she has helped advise our high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients about succession planning with a focus on rural property estate clients.

Read on to learn more about Holly’s background, how she helps her clients, and some of her favourite parts of her role.

Could you tell us a bit about your background and experience prior to working at John Lamb Hill Oldridge?

Before I started working at John Lamb Hill Oldridge, I used to row for Team GB. During university, I competed in under-23 competitions and when I left university in 2017, the Rio Olympics had just happened. Lots of people had won medals and then retired, which opened the doors to the next generation. Luckily, I was selected for the senior team for the Tokyo Olympiad.

This experience taught me a few key lessons. The first is discipline because, as an athlete, you find a routine that you stick to, come rain or shine. I was quite motivated as a person anyway but this taught me how to take that motivation and channel it so that I knew what to focus on during more challenging times.

Another key lesson was the importance of communication. As a rower, you spend a lot of time in a boat with other people but you are rarely face to face so the words you use really matter. You need to understand which one or two words you can say to motivate the crew and let them know how you are feeling. The corporate environment is similar because you are always going to be part of a team. Working out how to get the best out of your colleagues and how you can all work together to achieve your shared goal is crucial.

When I retired from rowing, I had a lot of transferrable skills but I was unsure where I might fit into the corporate world. I was put into contact with John Lamb Hill Oldridge through a recruitment agency and I knew straight away that it was a company that I would enjoy working for. Being yourself is important here, which I liked. The company is also in an exciting growth phase so it feels like we are chasing a goal. For me, building something as a team was an exciting prospect.

What do you believe has been your most significant career milestone so far, and how has this shaped your approach to your work today?

I qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games but due to the Covid pandemic they were postponed by a year. Sadly, during those 12 months, I became too ill to go to the Olympics and I was taken off the team.

I believe I have learned more from not going to the Olympic Games than from any other life experience. For a long time, I was very fixated on getting to the Olympics and winning an Olympic gold medal; I viewed every other competition as a stepping stone to the Olympics.

Being taken off the team before the games started was disappointing, but it made me realise that the most important thing in life is to enjoy what you are doing in the moment. It is a shame to waste those moments because you are so fixated on this big goal.

What is your specialism and how do you help your clients in this area?

I specialise in helping high-net-worth clients to cover their inheritance tax (IHT) liability using life insurance, with a focus on rural property estate clients. This means that, when the client dies, their family will receive a life insurance payout to help them cover the liability, removing the need to sell properties or businesses. As a result, my clients can pass on assets to their beneficiaries.

What do you consider to be the biggest misconception about succession planning and why?

I think it is a misconception that succession planning is inherently stressful. I sometimes meet clients who are slightly nervous about succession planning. Whether they have been thinking about it for a long time, or have not thought about it at all, it can be challenging to start talking about what will happen after you die.

In a way, though, succession planning can be exciting. If you have built something, your children can take it on from you and build and grow it in another way. You have the opportunity to educate them and let them take on your legacy.

Our job is to remove the stress from succession planning and make it enjoyable in a sense. If you are lucky enough to have those things, then making a plan means you can enjoy passing it on to the next generation. Once you have a plan in place, you can relax because you know that you can gift assets to your beneficiaries and that your life insurance can cover the IHT liability later on.

What advice would you offer to professionals who are supporting high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families and family businesses who may be concerned about protecting their assets for future generations?

Firstly, remember that you are working as a team with other advisers. This is important to ensure the succession plan satisfies all the client’s needs. If you approach it as an individual, you might make a good plan from your perspective, but then you find that there were additional needs or circumstances that you were not aware of. Each adviser will interact with the client differently, so they could have useful information that you might not receive directly from the client.

The second piece of advice I would give is to never underestimate family dynamics. Succession planning is complicated, but it is even more complicated by the fact that different generations of the same family, or even certain individuals in a family, may not have the same opinion. It is important to be respectful of all perspectives.

What is the most important step in helping to prepare your client’s beneficiaries to receive a wealth transfer or to take over their family business?

Different people have different perspectives. Some families take the view that the children should know about the plans from a young age, and they are prepared to receive their inheritance in advance. While others prefer to allow their children to take their own path in life and do not talk to them about the inheritance until they are older.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach, so I think it is important to remember that a one-size-fits-all model does not work. It is about understanding the wishes of the client and working out the best course of action for them.

What is the most rewarding part of your role at John Lamb Hill Oldridge?

Our role is to protect family assets from being sold and taken out of the family. Putting life insurance in place means that the cash is going to be there to pay the IHT and the family can continue to live in the family home that has been theirs for generations, or continue to be custodians of the land around them. So, it feels like you are part of a team protecting the family. The part of my role that I find most rewarding is getting to know a family and helping them create a succession plan that works for them.

I also enjoy the technical aspect of the job. I love learning, so being able to see how the tax rules change and putting a plan together that mitigates tax and helps the client to save money is always satisfying.

What do you believe sets John Lamb Hill Oldridge apart from other organisations in this sector?

There are three elements to this. The first one is that we have our own in-house underwriter, and we have a team of people whose job it is to guide the client through that process. Our clients only have to do the medical underwriting once, because we collect all the data ourselves, analyse it, and then present it in the best possible way to the whole of the UK life insurance market in one go. This means we can offer the best rates from a medical underwriting perspective.

The second thing that sets us apart is our servicing capabilities. We run a book of approximately £3.5 billion of insurance sums assured, which protects over £8 billion of client assets. To manage that, we have a very advanced servicing department that stays on top of all those policies and trustees, ensuring our clients have a seamless experience.

The third point is the technical side of things. We specialise in offering advice on the technical intricacies of life insurance, tax, and law, making our organisation market-leading in providing life insurance solutions for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

What level of support can clients expect from their broker when they work with John Lamb Hill Oldridge?

Our clients can expect the highest standard of service from John Lamb Hill Oldridge. For example, if we are needed in trustee meetings, even just for 10 minutes, we are happy to travel to be there and support our client.

Then from the processing side, we underwrite in-house and our team is there to support the client through this process. So we keep in contact with the client, follow up the GP reports for them, and go the extra mile with all the paperwork. This means the client can rely on us to take care of everything, and they will need to have very minimal involvement in the process.

You recently won Gold in the Ultra High Net Worth Services of the Year category at the CityWealth Future Leaders awards. Could you tell us about the award and what this means for you and John Lamb Hill Oldridge?

I am thrilled to have won the award, it is a privilege to have been recognised and I would like to thank CityWealth for their support.

For me, the award feels like the culmination of three years of hard work achieving my diploma in financial planning and becoming STEP-qualified (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners). I also became an Associate Director last April and have taken on more responsibility within the company.

So, to win the CityWealth Future Leaders award was like the cherry on the cake of an intense but enjoyable three years.

Get in touch

To learn more about how Holly and the team at John Lamb Hill Oldridge can help you to support high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients with succession planning, please get in touch.

Email [email protected] or call us on 020 7633 2222.