Your IndustryNov 17 2015

Canada Life reckons Workie alone won’t work

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Canada Life reckons Workie alone won’t work

Canada Life Group Insurance has argued the government’s ‘Workie’ auto-enrolment awareness campaign is not enough and advisers should seize the opportunity to help small businesses with their duties.

The firm stated that there will be a high demand for intermediaries to provide practical guidance to the 1.8m SMEs with staging dates in 2016, something which it has capitalised on by offering a range of auto-enrolment support tools and materials.

These include sales aids for advisers to use, including a new video, infographics on research findings, myth busting materials and a roller banner to use at exhibitions.

Adviser letter templates are also being offered for explaining adviser services to accountants and employers, along with a dedicated adviser webpage with a three-step guide to automatic enrolment.

Paul Avis, marketing director at Canada Life, said: “Automatic enrolment is entering a new phase in 2016 and we would urge all advisers to embrace this once in a career lifetime opportunity to grow the group risk market as smaller and micro employers are routinely staged.”

According to July analysis from The Pensions Regulator, 68 per cent of small and 64 per cent of micro employers are planning to use a third party to help them meet their auto-enrolment obligations on time.

Canada Life stated that this is a “huge business opportunity” for advisers in the group risk market, as the majority of employers say they would consider offering further employee benefits at the same time as workplace pensions.

The Department for Work and Pensions’ new mascot ‘Workie’ is spearheading a multi-million pound campaign to support the next stage of the auto-enrolment roll-out, but Canada Life warned more needs to be done to push auto-enrolment

The Pension Regulators’ Spring technical report found 67 per cent of those with a staging date in 2016 have not yet begun to investigate which pension scheme they are going to use.

A spokesperson from the Department for Work and Pensions told FTAdviser the initial response and public reaction to Workie has been very positive and “we are pleased by the increase in visitors to The Pension Regulator’s website”.

In the three weeks before the campaign began there was a weekly average of 6,980 unique visits to the employers page, while in the three weeks after the launch there was a weekly average of 33,496 unique visits to the employers page.

“We have also seen an increase in the number of business advisers visiting TPR’s website,” the spokesman said. “The campaign has also triggered an increased awareness in automatic enrolment, with a large amount of discussion on social media and amongst key stakeholders.

“As we see Workie visiting people in all sorts of work environments over the coming months, asking them not to ignore him, we expect this trend to continue.”

FTAdviser asked some intermediaries what their plans were for taking advantage of this auto-enrolment opportunity.

Jack McVitie, chief executive of LEBC Group, said his team is “very involved” and their main approach has been through book keepers, as 70 per cent of the smaller companies outsource their payroll.

“To that end, we have linked with the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers and Aviva to create a simple online solution. Its aim is to provide a governance, compliance and pension solution all in one package.”

As for the Workie adverts, he said they have been “impactful”.

Malcolm Coury, managing director of Money Wise, said Workie was probably very good - if you are about five-years-old.

“Otherwise I think it is completely stupid, albeit I understand that the objective is to present something memorable to the public to raise awareness.

“Why change the ‘I’m in’ campaign? After all, we’re not selling workplace pensions to five-year-olds, we’re selling them to employers and employees over 21-years-old.”

Other advisers said they simply did not have the time to concentrate on this potential business stream.

Douglas Baillie, director at Douglas Baillie Tax Planning and Wealth Management, said: “I decided not to get involved in auto-enrolment as it is immensely time consuming”, while Alan Solomons, director at Alpha Investments and Financial Planning, added it is “not something I have had the time to do, but would have liked to”.

peter.walker@ft.com