The Broker Strikes Back

I'm not really taking to this blogging business as quite as enthusiastically as I had anticipated but here goes another.

I have to say that life in financial services has been wholly crap for the last three years or so, the low interest rate arena we find ourselves in has not been that much help to the broker unfortunately.  Coupled to that the dual pricing lenders and direct only deals that under cut the broker rates effectively have made many a broker redundant.

There has still been business out there in the mortgage world but brokers have certainly had to diversify to survive.  All of this is pretty obvious stuff really, especially if you are a broker yourself.

Just lately I can sense a level of positivity coming from lenders about using brokers once again.  Some that have offered direct only deals have now let us back into the fold (ie Woolwich), Santander (Abbey) have given certain brokers a blinding 2yr fixed rate to offer sub 75% LTV customers which you can't get on the high street.  ING Direct have also come onto the panel of lenders I can use and their lifetime tracker really is very good indeed.

As far as interest rates go I just can't see a big rise in the near future.  Every now and then a member of the MPC declares its time for a rise but gets shouted down.  The austerity measures that the government are putting in place will take longer to bite and I can see the Bank Of England holding rates steady for at least another six months.  This makes a tracker (especially the ING deal) a good option at the moment.  remember though folks all circumstances are different and the whole point of this message is "get advice", "talk to a broker".  We do know what we are talking about.

I have to say I'm cautiously optimistic about the future, for the first time in three years I have a decent pipeline of business and can confidently say I can offer clients the best deal possible without worrying about the competition from direct only lenders. 

I'm Not Going to Scream at You But WAKE UP!

As it happens this blog is similar in nature to my last in that I'm going to talk about protection.  Life insurance that is, not the most exciting of topics but I'm afraid it is constantly ignored by the general public and sooner or later if you ignore something long enough it will come back to haunt you.

The latest insurance company to compile some stats for us is Aviva (formerly Norwich Union).  They reveal in their first "Family Finances Report" that 93% of families do not feel they have adequate financial protection in place.  This includes 61% of families confessing they do not even have the most basic life insurance in place.


The report reveals that those most likely to be under protected are single parent families, which I guess would make sense.  If husband and wife seperate then the joint life insurance policy they have in place will probably get cancelled and if they are then counting the pennies they probably won't take out a new policy.  Very dangerous if you ask me, if one parent is paying a monthly sum to the other for child costs and that person either dies or suffers an illness preventing them from working then the monthly money dries up thus affecting the children.


It really surprises me that there is a general unwillingness to get covered, I'll bet we all know someone who has been off work for a period of time due to a serious illness, how did it affect them?


If you read this and it makes you think then give me a call (0845 430 8676), it's not that expensive to protect you and your family.  

The full report can be found here http://www.aviva.com/media/news/9379/