Providers and the government should educate on equity release

The results come following Bridgewater’s first survey of equity release advisers where over half of all respondents said ‘wider consumer education on the benefits of equity release’ would be the single biggest benefit to the equity release sector over the next six months.

When asked, ‘Who do you believe has the main responsibility for consumer education?’ 31% of advisers said the Government, 28% chose product providers, 16% opted for the advisory community themselves and 12% answered the trade body, SHIP.

In the last survey the vast majority of advisers said they expected equity release market activity to either ‘increase’ or ‘increase a lot’ in the next six months. In the latest survey advisers were asked what percentage of that increase would be down to their own contribution. The majority of advisers (52%) said that between 26-75% of that increase in market activity would come from advisers while 19% said that an even higher percentage, 76-100%, of the growth would be down to advisers.