A spokesperson from Legal and General told Mortgage Solutions that it will be delivering the ability to process a trust completely online in its Online Protection Connect (OLPC) system. This will be available for five trust types: relevant life plan, business protection, survivor’s trust, discretionary trust and flexible trust.
Customers will be asked a few questions to identify the correct trust and then will be able to complete an online form.
The insurer said the system will pre-populate customer data with brokers only needing to provide a few extra details to complete the process.
It added that paper forms and signatures are no longer required, which will reduce delays and help intermediaries to store their customers’ information in one central hub. However, paper trusts are still available if required and trustees will be sent a copy of the trust form.
Power to choose
Using an online trust will not only give the customer the power to choose who benefits from their policy but also allows them the flexibility to decide whether to give all the proceeds away or keep some or all of the terminal or critical illness benefit for themselves at the point of a valid claim, L&G said.
Craig Brown, director of intermediary at Legal and General (pictured), said this launch has come in response to requests from intermediary partners on how to improve services.
He said: “We know that trusts have often been associated with complexity and time-consuming processes and have seen a fairly low adoption. We wanted to change this, as writing a policy in trust in many instances is the right thing to do, putting the right money in the right hands at the right time.
“So we felt that more needed to be done to simplify this journey for intermediaries and their customers alike and that is what we are launching today.
“We believe that these changes will make creating a trust much easier for our intermediary partners, saving them time, paper work and chase up calls giving them more time back to talk to more of their customers about the benefits of protection.”
