Richard Priestley’s seat in his office is very strategically placed. He is close enough to listen to calls between his team members and advisers or customers in Canada Life’s Potters Bar office. And this gives him first-hand insight into the types of queries they have and what they are subsequently told.
Mr Priestley, who heads up retirement income, says: “Listening to [team members’ calls] you pick up snippets of what is going on. We get a mixture of advisers phoning for help and guidance, either about Canada Life’s technical team or there are bits and pieces on how they navigate the Canada Life process. For some it is the post-sale process, and for others it is during the sales service – understanding where applications are and what will happen to them.”
One of the issues the team faces is helping customers understand exactly what will happen as they go through that journey. Mr Priestley says something as basic as making it clear to the customer what comes next after they have filled out a form can affect the way they view the company. “We like to differentiate ourselves on really understanding the adviser and the customer process, and breaking that down to make sure what we are providing as a service is matching what a customer needs,” he says.
“Most companies will be focused on how quickly they pick up the phone, but the analysis goes one level deeper to understanding why that phone call is happening and is there anything we can do to help them process it.”
Mr Priestley says the focus on helping clients has sharpened further as a result of the increasingly complex pensions sector.
As a trained actuary he is not fazed by complexities, but what attracted him even more to his job were other skills – not traditionally associated with actuaries – of being able to step back from the numbers to see the bigger picture and communicate that to advisers and customers. Mr Priestley heads up the annuity, pensions drawdown and onshore bond business in his role at Canada Life. On a day-to-day basis he is responsible for looking at ways the company can build a presence in the bulk annuity market, as well as the overall drawdown market. These two areas have increasingly become bigger remits, particularly since the pension freedoms.
They are also the big driver behind Canada Life’s acquisition of Retirement Advantage. The acquisition will enable Canada Life to help advisers better assist customers with the pension choices available to them in the annuity and guaranteed income space.
Mr Priestley says: “[The acquisition] brought £1.4bn of assets, which is quite an attractive proposition. It brought expertise in the equity-release market, and has given us access to the technology that Retirement Advantage used to build out their drawdown product, which gives us a good platform to build on. The things that are exciting for us over the next 12 months involve integrating that Retirement Advantage business.”
He is also excited that providers are much more ready to write risks they would have avoided 10-15 years ago. He says: “Providers are getting more granular at underwriting individuals: giving an individual a bespoke rate on their health and medical condition and socio-economic group. That becomes much more important when you get to age 75 when there is an even bigger differential between a pure healthy life and potentially an individual with a number of conditions. That ability to offer bespoke rates will be really valuable for customers and very helpful for advisers to demonstrate they have searched the market and got the best value for their customers.”
The regulation that has driven up the complexity of the market is not a worry for Mr Priestley – as Canada Life has adapted to the “new normal”. But the big challenge he sees is around diversity and inclusion, and making sure the company and industry attracts the right mix of talent. He has been outspoken about how diversity and inclusion campaigns still exclude certain groups of people, such as those living with disabilities.
To some Mr Priestley will be viewed as a role model but it is not a title he is comfortable with. In 1998, six months into his job at Aegon and two weeks before he was due to get married, he broke his neck in a cycling accident and was left paralysed from the chest down with limited mobility in one hand.
He remained at Aegon for 11 years before joining Lloyds Banking Group, where he stayed for two years before joining Canada Life. He has nothing but praise for Aegon who were supportive in making his return to work process easy. But he says that broadly speaking, the industry still has challenges when it comes to attracting key talent.
“I have always found that organisations and individuals are very supportive, but equally it can be the elephant in the room and nobody likes to mention there is a wheelchair. In the effort to be diverse and inclusive, people find themselves not quite sure how to even approach the subject – so nervous about being correct that they don’t like to ask even simple questions.
“Because I am relatively relaxed and easy going people get over that quickly. For other types of individuals that can be quite a barrier, both in terms of when you are trying to take someone into the organisation and also when an individual joins: not being sure of what they can ask for in terms of assistance.”
Ima Jackson-Obot is a features writer for Financial Adviser
Richard Priestley’s career highlights:
2012 – Present: executive director, individual onshore, Canada Life
2012 – Present: Executive director, retirement income, Canada Life UK
2010 – 2012: Commercial director, life pensions and investments, Lloyds Banking Group
1998 – 2009: Capital management director, Aegon
