Legal & General's end of year results

Today is end of year results day at Legal & General, and I’d like to share some key takeaways for the Retirement Retail division. We finished 2019 with four businesses units working incredibly hard towards a shared goal: to help people achieve longer, healthier and happier lives in later life.

Our Retirement Income business had a strong 2019, with new business volumes of ￡970m up 22% against 2018 volumes. We achieved this through our growing strength in the independent financial adviser market and our competitive pricing, particularly in the first half of the year.

Legal & General Home Finance achieved a 25% share of the lifetime mortgage market in 2019 despite competition. With ￡1.8 trillion of housing equity owned by UK individuals over 55 we believe the slowdown in the overall lifetime mortgage market is temporary, with room for further growth.

Our Financial Advice business launched in November 2019 and currently it deals exclusively with our lifetime mortgage products. We’ll continue to work closely with our intermediary partners to improve access to and raise awareness of later life lending.

How can we help customers navigate the challenges of long-term care? Our Retirement Living Solutions division was created to tackle this very issue. We want to build the UK marketplace for finding care through our investment in Care Sourcer, a comparison and matching site for elderly care. And in 2019 we invested in Current Health, the leading remote patient monitoring platform.

Our customers have told us that traditional retirement is an outdated concept. We hear them. Moving into the 2020s, we’re focussed on having strong propositions that guide people through a more colourful retirement journey.