A survey carried out by more2life shows that half of equity release advisers believe a lack of face-to-face contact has made it more difficult to identify vulnerable customers.

While client interaction moving online wholly derives from Covid, the virus hasn’t had a proportional impact on the actual vulnerabilities that advisers have spotted – just 16% of the near-250 advisers asked said that Covid itself had caused vulnerabilities – although 20% said it had made the types of vulnerability more complex.

By far the biggest reason for a customer being vulnerable, at 50%, was the client being at an advanced age while the second-biggest reason, at 38%, was a significant financial worry separate from Covid-19.

The more positive news is that well over half – 63% of advisers – say that training in supporting vulnerable customers has improved in the last year while only 8% believe it has not improved at all.

The survey also asked what more could be done by equity release lenders to help in this matter. Tied at 26% each was ‘greater product innovation and choice’ and ‘more training and educational resources’.

And 19% replied by saying that lenders are already doing enough to support these types of customers.

More2life corporate marketing director Stuart Wilson says: “While no one wants to be concerned that they are not providing the best possible service to their clients, the fact that there is almost unanimous agreement on the importance of being aware of and understanding vulnerability is good news.

“By acknowledging the added complexity of providing advice during a pandemic to a customer demographic which is more prone to vulnerability, advisers have taken the most important step to managing and mitigating the impact of this.

“As a lender which focuses on the over-55s market this is a topic which is of great interest to us and we are delighted to see that advisers acknowledge that as an industry we have taken heed and stepped up to help.

“However, it remains clear that there is much to be done in this area – indeed, this job will never fully be ‘done’.”