Norwich Union, the UK's largest insurance company, has launched its new range of stakeholder pension products to IFAs. Following Norwich Union's successful pre- stakeholder offering, Your Pension @ Norwich Union, the company is launching a new range of stakeholder and personal pensions from simple, 'off-the-shelf' products to tailor-made solutions for both individuals and employers.
Norwich Union, the UK's largest insurance company, has launched its new range of stakeholder pension products to IFAs.
Following Norwich Union's successful pre-stakeholder offering, Your Pension @ Norwich Union, the company is launching a new range of stakeholder and personal pensions from simple, 'off-the-shelf' products to tailor-made solutions for both individuals and employers.
Individuals will be able to choose from:
- Your Pension @ Norwich Union, a simple, single-charged stakeholder product.
- Your Pension Select @ Norwich Union, a personal pension offering a wider range of investment funds and facilitating the scope for more advice through an optional small initial charge. The charging structure becomes fully stakeholder compliant after the initial period.
As well as offering Your Pension and Your Pension Select for corporate stakeholder and group personal pension schemes, employers will be given the option of taking out:
- Designer Pension @ Norwich Union, a tailored solution that is designed to match employers business needs and provide first class service and support.
Added value options include Your Pension Protector @ Norwich Union, a contribution protection contract for individual and group business, and Business Benefits @ Norwich Union, which supports employee benefits packages with features such as Income Protection, Private Medical Insurance and Life Insurance.
The 'off-the-shelf' Your Pension @ Norwich Union offers a simplified choice of 6 investment funds including a new Stakeholder With Profits Fund, the Balanced Managed Fund, the new socially responsible Sustainable Future Managed Fund & the UK Index Tracker Fund.
The overall propositions will be supported by a wide range of investment funds. Customers can choose from 16 unit-linked investment funds or the full range of Sustainable Future Funds managed by Norwich Union's in-house investment management company, Morley Fund Management*. Norwich Union is also offering a number of external funds managed by Deutsche Asset Management, Invesco, Merrill Lynch and Société Générale.
From 6 April, IFAs will be able to access extensive support material on-line and new e-commerce facilities through Norwich Union's IFA Extranet.
Norwich Union has already announced that from 6 April 2001, all existing individual and group personal pension policyholders will benefit from a stakeholder compliant 1% maximum charge.
Jerry Barnfield, Director of Pensions Development, commented: "We are wholly committed to becoming a leading provider in the stakeholder market and believe that the take-up of stakeholder pensions in the individual pension and corporate markets will be significant. Our propositions offer IFAs a strong range of stakeholder and personal pensions to meet the varied needs of individuals, employers and advisers.
"Backed by our successful range of investment funds, the new Sustainable Future Funds and the strong and competitive range of externally managed funds, we believe that our propositions will be difficult to beat in the market.
"Norwich Union has rapidly established itself in the pre-stakeholder market and has the scale, brand awareness, financial strength, e-commerce facilities and customer service support to be the market leader in the new stakeholder environment."
*Morley Fund Management won Money Management/Standard & Poor's Best Fund Manager award in March 2001.
Ends
Notes to editors:
- The value of investments can go down as well as up and is not guaranteed. Full written details are available on request.
- The IFA Extranet address is: www.norwich-union.co.uk/ifa
- CGU plc and Norwich Union plc merged on 30 May 2000 to create CGNU plc, the UK's largest insurance group and one of the top-five insurers in Europe with substantial positions in other markets around the world, making it the world's sixth largest insurer based on gross worldwide premiums.
CGNU's principal business activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance, with worldwide premium income and retail investment sales from ongoing business of over Ł27 billion and assets under management of more than Ł210 billion.
From October 2000, the combined life and pensions, general insurance and retail fund management businesses in the UK operate under the Norwich Union brand, while the institutional investment business operates under the Morley Fund Management brand.
CGNU's news releases are available on the internet at www.cgnu-group.com
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