Press releases
Legal & General Retail announces new Product and Propositions Director
Legal & General Retail announces the appointment of Mark Jones to the role of Product and Proposition Director for its annuities offering. Mark was previously Product Director for Legal & General Retail’s protection business.
23 Jan 2023
Mark’s appointment represents the provider’s commitment to growing its annuity product proposition. It comes as recent Legal & General research1 found that nearly one million people are now considering annuities for the first time to guarantee a set income, avoid market volatility and make the most of higher rates. But misconceptions around the product remain high – 44% of pre-retirees (aged 55+ but still in work) want a guaranteed income in retirement but less than half recognise an annuity as a potential solution, while almost one in five (16%) think they won’t live long enough to make an annuity good value.
In his previous role, Mark oversaw the product teams within Retail’s protection business. He led on major product changes, which extended support to a broader audience, helping to make protection available to more people. These include the launch of the Low Start Income Protection plan and the Rental Protection suite, in addition to increasing the maximum age at which customers can add the waiver of premium benefit when taking out a policy.
Mark also helped bring in the introduction of a range of Wellbeing Support services now offered directly to protection customers. The additional benefit provides practical and emotional help for physical and mental health conditions, from a reassuring chat and information to a clinical assessment, help with trauma, care concerns and later life planning.
Prior to joining Legal & General in April 2018 as Product Director, Mark previously worked at SunLife as Product Director and LV= as Head of Protection.
Lorna Shah, Managing Director, Legal & General Retail Retirement: “Mark has been an essential driver of product innovation for Retail and has played a major role in Legal & General being voted as number one for Income Protection. His expertise and industry experience makes him a great asset to our team and will help our customers gain greater access to the benefits annuities can bring.”
Mark Jones, Product and Propositions Director, Legal & General Retail Retirement: “Over the years we built two fantastic product teams within Protection. We achieved what we set out to do so it’s now time to build on these learnings across Retail Annuities. Both industries offer similar challenges based on misconceptions: people underestimate how much they need protection because they think ‘it’ will never happen to them – and it’s the same story with annuities. People don’t expect to live past 80+, even though we know this is highly likely. I’m looking forward to working with Lorna and the team to solve this and to deliver the best outcomes for our customers.”
References
1Research was carried out online by Opinium Research amongst 2,003 UK adults aged 55+ who are still in work between the 8th-17th November 2022.
Further information
Harry Cheesewright
PR Campaign Manager
Legal & General Retail
T: 07908954042
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.