"We welcome today's news from the ABI about the introduction of a best-practice industry process for annuity purchase.  Historically, providers have been wildly inconsistent with their process and timings and this is a significant step forward that is extremely beneficial to those in the industry as well as members taking advantage of the open market option when buying an annuity.
 
"However, standardising the turnaround at 30 days does not seem to go far enough in providing a solution. Indeed, whilst it could be acceptable for impaired life or enhanced annuities to have a 30 day turnaround, we would expect conventional annuities to be done in half that time. Another concern is that many annuity providers will only guarantee their rates for 14 days so therefore taking 30 days to set it up may mean that the annuitant may have a different rate, whether it be better or worse, than the one originally quoted.
 
"For this initiative to be truly effective providers should be adopting a process whereby turnaround times are no longer than their guarantee period, so if it takes 30 days to do the annuity people at least know what they are going to get."