Air Club has released its latest half-year equity release provider report focusing on a number of key service measures, as experienced by advisers.

In the fourth iteration of its Temperature Check report, Air Club outlined the top three firms for overall service in the equity release market, which were Canada Life in first followed closely by Legal & General and One Family.

The Temperature Check, which in this iteration covers H2 2021, allows smaller advisers a to provide feedback on providers’ service levels and Air Club is using it to work with providers to help improve service standards across the sector.

More than 200 smaller advisers who account for around 12% of all equity release business in H2 2021 rated providers they had used on five key service areas. more2life was ranked best for ease of application, while Legal & General topped the list for speed of both pre and post-offer processing. Canada Life came out on top in the communication category, while One Family were ranked best for their online service.

The providers whose service levels were reviewed as part of the report in the second half of 2021 included Aviva, Canada Life, Legal & General, LV=, Just, One Family, more2life and Pure Retirement. Air Group said it engages with each lender to provide feedback on the analysis and ensure the collective voice of the smaller advisers who use its services are heard.

“There have been some notable changes in this iteration of the Temperature Check but overall it seems clear a number of providers have upped their game across a number of key adviser-focused areas,” commented Air Group CEO, Stuart Wilson.

“Without wanting to necessarily single out individual providers, we must highlight Canada Life who achieved both the highest overall net promoter score and the highest service scores. This is a significant achievement and one that should be applauded.

“We’d also like to highlight One Family, who may represent a small proportion of the market than others, but who are clearly delivering for those advisers who use them.”

Wilson added: “The last six months of 2021 was undoubtedly a very busy time for providers with a significant volume of both new and existing business. It’s clear from the scores and the comments received that some lenders struggled to deal with these challenges.

“Improvements need to be made as there is plenty of growth to come within the later life lending market which broke the £4bn barrier for the first time last year. This will only be achieved if lenders work with advisers to support customer demand so while some slack can be given for pandemic-related reasons, that can’t be an excuse going forward.”

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