Alan Lakey
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This protection specialist is an IFA champion who is fighting for advisers’ rights on key issues such as a 15-year long stop and RDR qualifications.
Most Money Marketing readers regularly find fault in FSA legislation but few have been so proactive in addressing grievances than Alan Lakey. As well as running Highclere Financial Services, his own IFA firm in Hertfordshire, he has set up the Adviser Alliance, a lobby group for small IFAs to get their point across.
His first job was in an office for an oil company but at 21 he realised that manual labour would mean he was financially better off. “Lots of my friends in factories were earning two or three times what I was on and while they were doing horrible, dreadful jobs, they were able to buy houses and cars and I wasn’t.”
He took a job at a heat treatment laboratory and bought his own house. “It was disgusting, I hated it, it was really soul-destroying.” After four years, he had enough and an insurance broker friend suggested he move into financial services.
Lakey joined United Friendly and began working door to door. “It did not take long to realise the products that they were selling were pretty poor. Friends would ask me for insurance and I used to point them to the local insurance broker.”
He moved on to the AA to help spearhead a foray into life insurance but a recession left him surplus to requirements. “I had the distinction of being the first person to be made redundant in the history of the AA.”
Lakey then enjoyed five years at Provident Life before an unhappy stint at Legal & General. He joined a friend at an IFA firm and left in 1991 to set up Highclere, where he set about developing a specialist firm for protection business and was an early pioneer of critical-illness cover.
“When you begin, you take whatever business you can get and it is only later on that you realise that there are certain aspects of the business that you prefer to others.
“I knew some people who just did executive pensions and although it paid well I did not find it interesting so I did not do it. I started focusing on protection because I found it interesting. I did not aim to become an expert in the field but it sort of happened because I studied the subject and at the time most advisers were not doing it.”
Lakey has become an industry voice, winning several awards for his protec- tion work and writing several guides to protection products.
His other professional passion is IFA regulation and such is the strength of his convictions that he has set up the Adviser Alliance, a lobby group to get across the concerns of IFAs.
The group was created after Lakey stepped down as chairman of the IFA Defence Union. He and several others mooted the idea of an alternative repres-entative to advisers and the response was enough to convince them that there was room for another IFA lobby group.
“I was approached by a number of people, including very senior people at insurance companies, who told me I should do this. It was interesting that there was far more support than I envisaged, some of which was from some very serious players.”
With the help of volunteers, he launched www.adviseralliance.co.uk and has started courting members. “There are 33,000 advisers out there so if we get 1,000 in a year we will be very happy as that would give us enough funds to enable us to launch legal challenges.”
The main issues for Adviser Alliance are the lack of a 15-year long stop and the retail distribution review. “The 15-year long stop is clearly a big issue. It is fundamentally wrong and it has to change.”
Lakey is writing a letter that IFAs can use to send to their MP to highlight the lack of a long stop against complaints.
Adviser Alliance is also strongly against the qualification demands of the RDR. “I am qualified to do my job on December 31, 2012 but on January 1, 2013 I am not. We are being assaulted by the FSA in a way that is fundamentally differently from any other occupation or profession.”
He wants to lobby against banning commission. He says a cap on commission would be much preferable to a forced fee-based system as it would save the industry millions and would ensure everyone could afford financial advice. “All we have to do is make sure that we are not taking advantage of people.”
Lakey stresses that the Adviser Alliance is not out to replace Aifa or the IFA Defence Union but says he and his supporters have been compelled to create the group after feeling alienated. “Aifa may have good intentions but it is often perceived to be more bark than bite. It does not seem to have been as vociferous over certain issues as I and other members would have liked.”
He is confident that the Adviser Alliance can achieve its goals and successfully lobby against legislation. It is aiming to be face to face soon with Treasury and FSA representatives.
“If I did not think the small IFA can make a difference, I would not bother. My own business was down by 30 per cent last year and I have even had my wife telling me that I must focus on that but I told her that if I let all this go through, I would not have a business in three years. We need to get in front of the decision makers and say, you are really wrong.”
Born: London
Lives: Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
Education: Bourne Valley Comprehensive and Dacorum College
Career: 1978-79, United Friendly home service agent; 1979-80, AA Insurance Services regional officer; 1981-85, Winterthur Life senior consultant; 1985-86, Legal & General senior consultant; 1986, partner DAB Financial Services; 1991, partner Highclere Financial Services
Likes: Fairness and balance, interesting people and good music
Dislikes: Political correctness, officiousness, bad music
Drives: Honda Civic
Book: Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance
Film: From Dusk Till Dawn
Album: Parachute by the Pretty Things
Career ambition: Restoration of balance in financial services
Life ambition: Happiness
If I wasn’t doing this I would be…Happier
Interview by Lee Jones
