British Friendly has launched its new Lifetime Care Plan, an Immediate Needs Annuity designed to help advisers support clients facing the financial and emotional challenges of funding long-term care.
The launch comes against a backdrop of rising demand for later-life financial planning solutions. With the UK’s population changing, with one in four projected to be aged 65 or over by 2050, the demand for long-term care support is set to become significantly higher over the coming decades.
At the same time, people are living longer but spending more of those years in poor health, widening the gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. As a result, care needs are becoming more complex and lasting for longer. In 2023, just under 50% of older residents were self-funders, compared to only around 2% of younger adults.
The new proposition provides guaranteed monthly care payments for life, paid directly to UK-registered care providers, helping clients secure certainty over care funding. Designed to help meet the costs of long-term care, the plan is aimed at self-funding clients who are UK residents aged 60 and over with an immediate or imminent need for care.
Key features
– Immediate or deferred start options, with deferred periods available from one to five years
– Level, fixed-escalating or RPI-linked payment options to help manage rising care costs
– Short-term capital protection included as standard unless opted out
– Optional long-term capital protection allowing up to 75% of the original premium to be protected for the client’s estate
– Option to remove capital protection entirely to improve affordability
– Ability to split care payments between two UK-registered care providers
SOLLA Jt. Chair, Jane Finnerty, said:
“Fear of care costs still stops far too many people from planning properly for retirement, often preventing them from fully enjoying those years. Advisers play a crucial role in discussing care‑cost risks and funding options that can bring real peace of mind. SOLLA’s aim is to ensure clients can find advisers with this specialist expertise.
The addition of this proposition strengthens the diversity of our product range, addressing a growing and often underserved consumer need with an innovative solution that complements both our existing Income Protection offering and our mutual ethos.
By delivering guaranteed payments directly to care providers, the plan enables advisers to help clients secure dignity, stability and peace of mind at a time when financial certainty matters most. At the same time, its flexibility allows advisers to tailor solutions around wider financial planning, estate considerations and individual family needs.”
The Lifetime Care Plan is only available through authorised advisers holding an appropriate long-term care qualification, including CF8 or Cert LTCP.
Nicky Cave, Managing Director at Eldercare Group, said:
“We have been delighted to watch the development of British Friendly’s Lifetime Care Plan over the last few months, and we are excited to be able to start making this available to our clients. British Friendly has been really receptive to all our feedback regarding essential product features in the run-up to this launch.
As a specialist Care Funding Advisory firm, we welcome more options for the families that we speak to and, with British Friendly becoming the fifth Provider now in the market, this healthy competition can only be beneficial to our clients.
For Advisers who don’t hold the relevant qualification and expertise, they can still make the Care Fees Annuity solution available to their clients by referring to a specialist such as ourselves.”
