Middle and Far East investors are the main enquirers for Lombard International’s new UK-based international life plan, according to the firm’s life underwriter.
In October, this publication reported on the launch of the International Life Plan, which is protection solution designed to help high net worth individuals (HNWIs) protect and preserve key parts of their personal, family and business legacies.
The plan looks to take care of a range of individuals, including those with illiquid assets suffering from inheritance tax planning, whether they are UK residents or non-residents with UK exposure.
Nigel Hartley, life underwriter of wealth structuring solutions at Lombard International, said during a media briefing attended by International Adviser: “We anticipated a lot more of clients for this plan coming out of the Far East and the Middle East.
“We made sure we had the structure in place and capacity to cover people in those regions. Lots of the enquiries we have seen have been from Qatar and Dubai.
“My personal opinion – I guess if we look at who has been buying London property over the last few years, and I think that is why the solution might be attractive to that part of the world.
“We haven’t seen as much interest yet in the Far East, but we are starting to see enquiries in offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. And again, a lot of Chinese money has been invested into the UK property market – so we are starting to see more enquiries in terms of Chinese nationals.”
Strategy
This life cover is a new type of plan for Lombard International, and Simon Gorbutt, director of wealth structuring solutions, spoke during the briefing about the strategy at the firm.
Gorbutt added: “Lombard is a company that is generally focused on investment style insurance now moving into more traditional pure protection policies, particularly with a focus on modern clients that have more complex situations.
“At its most basic this is well known in the UK, but it is not always possible to find the right level of cover, not always possible to meet the challenges that these clients have, particularly if they are based around the world and have things like remittance and IHT issues.”
Gorbutt also said that clients are looking towards these plans because “some clients just are not aware of changes made in the UK” because “it is difficult to follow what is going on”.
He added: “Clients say how on earth I am meant to know about this. That is one of issues I think, and as people gradually become aware, they think what on earth can I do to take care of this huge IHT bill. There has been a lot of interest in this plan with those sorts of clients.”
