Group Life provider Lutine, part of Direct Group, has launched an excepted life mastertrust to extend the range of services it provides to advisors.
Andy Coles, Lutine business director, said the new service is in response to significant growth in excepted mastertrusts in recent years, and is part of Lutine’s “Your Life is Our Business” strategy to provide a complete range of options to the company’s introducing partners and their customers.
He said: “We are pleased announce that both registered and expected group life policies can now be written into a mastertrust administered through trustees at PTL Governance Limited (PTL), who already administer our registered mastertrust offering.”
Mr Coles explained that more than ever, employers are providing the lump sum benefit through excepted group life policies (EGLPs) rather than as part of a registered scheme. According to Swiss Re EGLP premiums grew 27.9% and benefits by 29.4% during 2015 and growth has continued since then. The chief benefit is that EGLPs are not affected by the lifetime allowance.
He added: “We are well established in the micro/SME and niche group risk segment, and have seen an increasing demand from advisors concerned that poorly established trusts can potentially lead to delays in payment to beneficiaries, and that payouts are compromised by tax changes to the LTA, which makes this product pertinent to high net worth business owners and entrepreneurs.”
Mr Coles explained that while delayed payouts have not been an issue at Lutine to date, “the way in which we deal with claims is important both to ourselves and business partners, and so extending our current arrangement with PTL makes sound commercial sense.”
David Brown, Partner at PTL, said: “We are pleased to extend our partnership with Lutine into excepted mastertrusts which will deliver a quicker on-risk process with no requirement to register with HMRC. PTL will provide ongoing independent trustee governance for transparent management and online administration.”