The changing role of mortgage networks

Legal & General believes that mortgage networks must rapidly evolve, just as advisers are having to do, in order to adapt and survive the extreme market conditions.

Duncan Crocker, Managing Director of Intermediary Distribution at Legal & General said: "In recent months, the role of a network has shifted to provide focussed sales training to mortgage businesses. These businesses are looking to secure their futures by giving advice, especially to existing clients, across a much broader range of mortgage-related protection and wealth client needs. We maintain a large team of development managers on the road giving sales training, have a proven CRM system and we are also exploring and implementing options to help provide financial support to our partners through the current market downturn."

Legal & General is providing additional support in these difficult times, such as bespoke training to further develop the skills required to generate sales on the back of Legal & General's protection and general insurance campaigns. This may include enhanced adviser commission and adviser or customer incentives. It is also providing coaching for firms to build confidence in order to maximise new appointments and to identify potential customer leads.

As well as continuing to work more closely with existing partners, Legal & General is also attracting increasing numbers of new distribution partners because of the range of options available to both directly authorised (DA) and appointed representative (AR) brokers. Recent new trading partners include:

MoneyQuest Mortgage Brokers Ltd(appointed representative of the Legal & General mortgage network, Legal & General Partnership Services Limited)

Tenet (Legal & General sole-tie protection added as an option to the Tenet network)

John Charcol (Legal & General sole-tie for protection and MPPI)

The Share Centre (Legal & General sole-tie for wealth products)

Duncan Crocker added: "Legal & General has a very broad spread of distribution partnerships, ranging from large banks to small IFAs. What attracts firms to be aligned with us is our enviable financial strength, strong brand and our diverse range of solutions to suit all business models. Brokers can, for example, choose to become a part of our regulated mortgage network if they don't want the risk or cost burden of being directly authorised.

"They will then have access to our mortgage club, protection, GI and wealth management products. Similarly they can, for example, choose to remain directly authorised yet take a sole-tie agreement for protection and GI whilst using our DA mortgage club. Either way, what they are saying is that in tough times, they want to work with host partners that have longevity, capital certainty and are trustworthy."