Press releases
Free Care Concierge service rolled out to Legal & General Retail customers
18 Sep 2023
- The free service, to be included across Retail products as standard, provides instant access to tailored support and later-life care experts
- Eligible customers can access the service three ways: digital platform, phone or through their adviser
- Find out more about Legal & General’s Care Concierge service
Legal & General Retail has announced its Care Concierge service will be available to eligible customers across its Retail business. The free service, to be included across the majority of its products as standard, provides policyholders and their immediate families instant access to tailored support and later-life care experts.
In England and Wales, approximately 2.5% of people aged over 65 live in residential care homes1. However, this number is likely to increase in the future due to the UK’s ageing population. On average, it costs around £800 a week for a place in a care home and £1,078 a week for a nursing home2.
To help customers navigate these challenges, Care Concierge provides expert, impartial guidance to help people understand, find and fund care, alongside additional help with later-life housing options and legal matters.
Care Concierge is available to all Annuity, Lifetime Mortgage, Workplace Pension and Group Protection customers. Retail Protection customers with a policy starting 20 July 2023 onward can also access the service. Customers can use the service via a dedicated phone line or a digital platform, which is accessible out of hours.
Bernie Hickman, CEO, Legal & General Retail: “We originally launched the first-of-its-kind Care Concierge service in 2021, but with two-thirds of adults in the UK having provided unpaid care for a loved one, which can have a real impact on their financial futures, we have made it available to customers across our Retail products.Our nation’s ageing population will see the number of over 85s in the UK double by 2041. With 47% of older people in residential care in England self-funding3, the responsibility of paying for and providing later-life care is falling to families who are also facing an increasingly complex care system.
We want to help people navigate the care sector with ease and confidence and ensure they have the right tools available to support them through what is likely an already challenging time. We encourage advisers to discuss this benefit with clients as part of their financial planning conversations, to help them work towards a brighter financial future for them and their loved ones.”
References
1Office for National Statistics, Profile of the older population living in England and Wales in 2021 and changes since 2011
2Age UK, Paying for residential care
3Office for National Statistics, Care homes and estimating the self-funding population, England: 2022 to 2023
Further information
Koren Byrne-Hunte
PR Manager
Legal & General Retail
Notes to editors
Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the UK's leading financial services groups and a major global investor, with £1.2 trillion in total assets under management1 of which 40% is international. We have a unique and highly synergistic business model, which continues to drive strong returns. Legal & General provides powerful asset origination and management capabilities directly to clients, which also underpin our leading retirement and protection solutions. We are a leading international player in Pension Risk Transfer, in UK and US life insurance, and in UK workplace pensions and retirement income. Our purpose is to improve the lives of our customers and create value for our shareholders. Through inclusive capitalism, we are investing in long-term assets, such as real estate and infrastructure, that can help build a better society for the future.
1Data as at 31 December 2023.
Legal & General Retail helps create brighter financial futures for all our customers. The division covers the savings, protection and retirement needs of our c.14 million retail policyholders and workplace members.
In 2023, we had total individual annuity sales of £1,431 million, and issued £299 million of Lifetime Mortgages and Retirement Interest Only Mortgages. Our Workplace pension platform served 5.2 million members, while our Protection businesses gave peace of mind to several million direct, group and US customers, taking in £1,991 million of UK and $1,584 million of US gross written premiums.