Your IndustryMar 2 2016

Specialist care advice service launched

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Specialist care advice service launched

A new specialist advice service for long term care funding is being launched this week.

My Care Consultant has been set up to help IFAs get new business on planning for social care.

The service takes on lead generation, an initial consultation with potential clients and a whole of market review based on their individual needs - including an approximate cost.

If the client then wants to know more about a particular product, MCC will direct them to one of the advisers on its nationwide panel who will guide them through the process.

Jacqueline Berry, who founded MCC, is also a director of independent advice firm the Care Funding Partnership.

She said: “Even with the clear opportunity that an ageing demographic provides for financial advisers, very few are qualified to give advice on long term care funding products.

“At MCC we view financial planning as an on-going process and aim to support customers and their families to make sensible, informed decisions about money and develop strategies to meet their needs.

Even with the clear opportunity that an aging demographic provides for financial advisers, very few are qualified to give advice on long term care funding products. Jacqueline Berry

“By taking on the initial exploratory and relationship development we are able to deliver to IFAs a potential pipeline of qualified prospects who are highly likely to convert.”

The Care Act 2015 means that since April councils have had to signpost people to advice on how to access care and how to fund it.

But according to MCC only 6 per cent of people going into care take financial advice before doing so.

An executive report from MCC is a flat £500 which is recouped from the cost of any product the client chooses to take.

As well as financial advisers, MCC works with solicitors, local authorities, charities, care home groups and specialist care home search consultants.

In the months after the Care Act came into effect the Society of Later Life Advisers reported that its membership more than doubled.

Adviser view

Brian Tabor, founder of Hertfordshire-based Care Matters, said: “People can think it is a question of deciding whether to sell your mother’s house or not but it is considerably more than that.

“In principle getting people some constructive and reasonably accurate information and then passing them onto a financial adviser is something I don’t have a problem with but panels can have a negative connotation.”

damian.fantato@ft.com