John Perks has been with LV since 2007, most recently running the retirement solutions and heritage parts of the business. So perhaps it has not been a huge surprise that after his then-boss Richard Rowney was appointed to the role of chief executive last year, he stepped into his shoes.
He is now managing director of LV's life and pensions business, a division that reflects the restructuring of the business with protection and pensions in one place, bringing two respective divisions together.
This meant the departure of Myles Rix as managing director of the protection business, to pursue "new opportunities".
Mr Perks, who trained as an actuary, said: "Both Myles and I have a good relationship with Richard. I have a good relationship with Myles."
Getting rid of silos
The problem with the different components in the LV life and pensions business is that they operated independently of each other, which Mr Perks said no longer works for the way the market is perceiving financial products.
Mr Perks said: "Previously we were quite siloed; we had a protection area and we had a retirement area and some of our heritage business and old legacy and savings business were separate.
"We realised these silos were set up to sell product rather than be consumer-focused and understand what people want. We wanted to bring it back together and integrate it much more fully this time.
"We want to have that combination of protection savings and investment products that help people through their journey from when they start to mature and think about saving, protecting their income while they work and optimising that income as they move into later life and retirement.
"By joining up the business we stop having these silos and we try to understand these customers and help give them their lifestyle."
At a simple level, Mr Perks said it was about combining sales forces that will go into the market and work out how best to adapt LV products to suit the client. He said: "It's a lot around how do you help educate people as to when they might need advice."
The mutual provider has been through a period of change in terms of the kind of products it is offering, chiefly taking the decision to pull out of lifetime annuities last year.
Mr Perks said: "We're in a very low interest rate environment and, with Solvency II, there were quite onerous capital requirements for lifetime annuities. They use up a lot of capital, which many companies don't like in the modern world. Consumers want flexibility, they're thinking in short time horizons, they don't want to lock in poor rates and that's one thing an annuity will guarantee you.
"We saw the annuity market decreasing and we're happy to work with those providers that can offer attractive rates."
A key part of the process of evolving the company, said Mr Perks, is becoming a key part of clients' lives. He said: "We're investing in training to have more of a seamless assistance throughout people's lives. It's about no longer being a company that just has various insurance contracts. We want to be our clients' life partners. We have very high brand loyalty and are very resilient. It's all about staying there."
One approach Mr Perks likes is the way rival insurance company Vitality has tried to get involved with people's lives in tailoring their insurance products. He said, however, that it was "quite elitist". He added: "It's for the healthy. [Our perspective is] how do you help the man in the street around what they want from insurance. They don't want to go running for that and they might have a concern about diabetes. How do we provide them with the information that helps them look after their lives?"
Pension transfer issue
A more immediate concern for many life offices is pension transfers. With requests to transfer out of defined benefit schemes deluging advisers' offices and the FCA stopping several firms from doing so, this issue has become a headache for life offices when they get requests from clients to do something with their newly arrived pots of cash.
Mr Perks, who attends board meetings and will soon become a fully-fledged director, said: "We have stopped transactions. We have had occasions when we've gone back to the adviser, and the clients should have taken a different route, and we've asked them to check their processes because we've had some concerns.
"DB transfers can be a very positive thing, but the process needs to be carried out so the saver needs to understand the value of what they're giving up, not just seeing a pot of cash. If done well, it's a great opportunity for people to tailor their retirement income to their personal needs."
As for the perspective from the new chief executive, does he see any changes in approach to his predecessor, Mike Rogers? Mr Perks said: "He's much more future leaning. We are looking at a much higher level around what is the purpose of an insurer, rather than down at a product level."
Melanie Tringham is features editor of Financial Adviser
