Living Time welcomes LV= launch

“New player reinforces evolution of the retirement income market”

Fixed-term annuity pioneer Living Time has welcomed the launch of new products by LV=, hailing the move as a clear pointer to profound changes sweeping across the retirement income market.

Living Time believes the entry of an additional company into this market will help encourage retirees and financial advisers to consider a wider range of alternatives to lifetime annuities for their retirement income needs.

“We launched our fixed-term annuity in 2006 to deliver a compelling combination of certainty, flexibility and value for money to a mainstream retirement income market,” said Kim Lerche-Thomsen, Living Time’s chief executive officer.

“Our income solutions have been successful by offering certainty to income drawdown customers and challenging the logic of locking into a lifetime annuity too early in retirement.

“In a retirement income market forecast to be worth about £23 billion1 in five years time, it was inevitable that life and pension providers would be watching our progress very closely.”

Living Time said the entry by LV= is a vote of confidence in the future of fixed-term annuities and recognition that the retirement income market is being transformed by the changing needs of retirees and the subsequent new options being developed. 

 “We always believed that it would only be when new entrants followed our lead that people would really start to sit up and take notice of the acceleration of change now underway,” said Kim Lerche-Thomsen.

1. Watson Wyatt:  July 14 2009 http://www.watsonwyatt.com/europe/news/pressreleases/press.asp?ID=21729

Ends

Notes to editors:

Living Time’s innovative retirement income solutions and high service standards have been recognised, most recently at the Professional Adviser Awards 2010 where it won ‘Best Third Way Product Provider’. Its OMO - Offer More Options - campaign was judged Most Promising Initiative at the Financial Innovation Award and Living Time is also proud to have won a Four Star Financial Adviser Service Award.

Living Time is also a founding member of the Pension Income Choice Association (PICA) which is campaigning to improve the functioning of the retirement income market.

Posted by: Stuart Wilson

Post date: Wednesday February 10, 2010 @ 08:26

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