Legal & General launches a Midlife MOT course to support those aged 40 to 60

Today Legal & General launches its Midlife MOT; a free, educational course, in partnership with The Open University (OU).

The Midlife MOT is open to everyone, regardless of whether they are one of the insurance and retirement provider’s customers, and covers three key areas identified by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): work, wealth and wellbeing. It has been designed to support those aged 40 to 60 by giving them the tools and knowledge to approach mid and later life with confidence.

Created by OU’s experts and leveraging Legal & General’s extensive knowledge on retirement finances, the content is easily accessible whenever it is most convenient for the user.

The course is a timely exercise for many, as today’s midlifers are facing a series of challenges.

More than six million people aged 40 to 60 (33%) are currently providing financial support or unpaid care to at least one loved one, on top of their job and other family commitments.

The support required of people in midlife has a significant impact on their lives, effecting their own work, wealth and wellbeing. Two out of five people in this age group (42%) feel overwhelmed by their commitments on at least a weekly basis, while 800,000 people (4%) have left work in the last 18 months due to family commitments.

Many midlifers feel the amount of money (15%) and time (10%) they provide to their loved ones is unsustainable, but, at the same time, many know their loved ones would not be able to support themselves without this help (36%).

These pressures result in midlifers making personal sacrifices. One in four people in midlife (25%) gets less than an hour to themselves in a day and one in five (19%) spend no time on improving their financial wellbeing, which could affect their retirement plans.

The impact of Covid, and the cost-of-living crisis has brought these challenges and the need for more support around work, financial resilience and wellbeing into even sharper focus.

This has been recognised by the DWP which has given a £400,000 funding boost for Midlife MOTs, to help people take stock of their health, skills and wealth as part of later-life planning.

Opinium survey of 4,009 UK adults aged between 40 and 60 years old in the UK was conducted between the 28 December and 6 January 2021.

Details of Midlife MOT course

The Midlife MOT course, aimed at those aged 40-60, covers the key subject areas of wealth, work and wellbeing.

You look at how to get your personal finances in order both for today’s needs and for later life. The course covers budgeting, how to cut spending painlessly, reorganising your debts and how to build up your investments to supplement your pension in later life. There’s a ten-point checklist too that identifies what areas of your finances are in order and which need attention.

Then you get the chance to review your working life – is it the right time to change job, start a new career or even start a business? Or you may just want a steer on how to make more of the opportunities available at your current employer. You begin this part of the course by reflecting on what you really want from work and what would give you greatest satisfaction before assessing the different paths you could take.

In the third part of the course you explore your wellbeing – checking your physical and mental health. How healthy is your current lifestyle? You assess this with an interactive quiz that also provides tips on how to improve your wellbeing. This part of the course is arranged around the five pillars of wellbeing – nutrition, hydration, physical activity, cognitive stimulation and social stimulation. And links are provided to enable you to explore in detail specific ways to check and improve your wellbeing – for example with exercise routines.

Filled with videos, quizzes and interactive tools the course is fun and easy to study:

Midlife MOT: wealth, work and wellbeing - OpenLearn - Open University