Letters of authority have been "just admin" for so long that it is easy to forget how much power they now hold over the advice experience. When an LoA stalls, it is not just an annoying delay; it means a client who cannot see the full picture, a recommendation that gets pushed back, or a Consumer Duty requirement that is harder to evidence. For advisers, slow, opaque LoAs have become one of the biggest sources of friction in client onboarding, review and consolidation journeys. For providers, they are increasingly a live test of how easy you are to do business with – and, be in no doubt, advisers are comparing you to your peers.
A clear shift in expectations is underway. Advisers are no longer just putting up with slow, fragmented LoA journeys; they expect faster, clearer and more predictable processes that match the pace of modern advice. They are increasingly looking to move away from the burden of bending to each providers' method – different LoA forms, channels and rules, and are in need of a common digital route such as Unipass Letter of Authority (ULoA), a whole‑of‑market solution where a single, structured request can reach multiple providers securely and be tracked more easily.
At the same time, some providers are going further, using ULoA as the foundation for deeper change: automating intake, cleaning up routing, and turning weeks of waiting for a response into journeys that can be turned around in just 15 minutes. Origo and four of the UK's largest providers are coming together to lead that change. Scottish Widows, Aviva, Royal London and L&G have joined with Origo to form the Unipass Letter of Authority Provider Consortium, showcasing what better LoA journeys can look like at scale in a collaborative whitepaper, Leading the LoA Shift.
The paper shares detailed case studies on how each organisation is building on ULoA within its own operations: the design decisions taken, the operational challenges overcome, and the impact they are already seeing in reduced friction, improved response times and clearer journeys for advisers and clients.
Across the consortium, common themes are emerging.
· Receiving over 195,000 LoA requests a year, Scottish Widows is moving to a single ULoA digital entry point and implementing deeper automation, aiming to reduce turnaround times from 15 days to just 15 minutes. In practice, that could result in an adviser receiving their LoA response during a meeting with a client, allowing the advice process to move at a pace that simply was not possible before.
· Aviva has introduced a digital LoA route for advisers using ULoA, halving misdirected demand into one team and building towards about 90% of LoAs flowing through an integrated, largely automated journey.
· Royal London is using robotics‑driven routing to create a single structured digital entry point via ULoA putting stronger foundations in place for LoAs while giving advisers a more straightforward route into the business.
· L&G has digitised a complex, high volume LoA process, by implementing ULoA to give advisers and their clients clearer visibility at every stage, reducing errors, simplifying workflows, and improving the end‑to end experience.
Scottish Widows' Head of Adviser Lab, Ed Parker, said the industry had long needed to improve LoA servicing and describes Scottish Widows' ultimate ambition for LoA turnaround times:
"It's great to see providers in this consortium and beyond investing in long overdue improvement to LoA servicing, with noticeable enhancement to digital experience, data accuracy and turnaround times. At Scottish Widows our ambition is clear - to move all of our LoA servicing through Unipass Letter of Authority, with automation built behind this single channel to offer advisers LoA responses in 15 minutes, not 15 days."
Commenting on the Whitepaper launch, Origo's Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Rafferty, said:
"The consortium shows what real collaboration looks like in practice as organisations integrate transformative LoA processes into their own systems, moving beyond simply digitising their existing approach to fundamentally improving the experience. I would like to thank our consortium partners for their leadership and support in driving this change. And for providers out there which still don't have it on their radar to improve the LoA experience for advisers and clients, it is time to ask: why not?"
The experiences of Scottish Widows, Aviva, Royal London and L&G show what is possible when providers commit to modernising LoA journeys in partnership with advisers, technology partners and each other at scale.
To explore what this could mean for your own LoA servicing, Origo's free whitepaper, Leading the LoA Shift: The Unipass Letter of Authority Provider Consortium is available to download as a practical reference point for advisers, platforms and product providers reviewing their LoA journeys.
