Equity release lender, more2life, revealed that the number of advisers who attended its 2021 Later Life Lending Symposium was 151% higher than for the same event in 2020. The conference is co-hosted by Key Partnerships and Air Group.

This signals a record high attendance for the event, which is largely attributed to its move to being broadcasted online and has made training and events more accessible to advisers working remotely.

Increase in engagement

As well as an increase in event attendance, adviser engagement during the symposium also improved notably this year. The number of resources clicked by attendees during the event totalled 1,342 and almost 200 on-demand views of the day’s content have taken the total number of advisers who registered for the event to over 1,000.

What was covered at the Later Life Lending Symposium?

This year’s Later Life Lending Symposium focused on support and training for advisers and provided insights into how the later-life lending market is developing and practical tips on how to best support customers. There were also numerous presentations during the event, including a keynote speech and interview with David Burrowes, chairman of the Equity Release Council, and director at the Society of Later Life Advisers, Tish Hanifan.

Marketing masterclass sessions were also held including a presentation on ‘Scorecard Marketing’ by author, keynote speaker and marketing expert, Phil Calvert. This particular topic went down well with advisers and Calvert has now built an equity release scorecard that can help advisers with their local lead generation activities, with a special discounted price available to those who attended the symposium.

Stuart Wilson, corporate marketing director at more2life, comments:  “We are delighted that this year’s symposium – the eighth that we’ve co-hosted with Key Partnerships and Air Group – reached more than double the number of advisers. As a lender committed to supporting advisers – no matter what the challenges we face – this event highlighted how successful a virtual offering can be as it ensured that geography was no barrier to engagement.”

“With customer needs, lending criteria and product choice constantly changing, it’s vital for the industry to provide advisers with the skills and information that they need to better serve later life customers. These attendance figures highlight the real hunger for information and education from later life advisers and we will certainly be looking at more digitally-led events going forwards in order to reach as many advisers as possible across the UK.”