Dedicated mortgage & protection offering launched

Lighthouse Group plc

("Lighthouse" or the "Group")

Lighthouse announces launch of dedicated mortgage and protection offering

Lighthouse Group plc (AIM:LGT), a leading national financial adviser for Middle Britain, is pleased to announce the launch of Lighthouse Mortgage and Protection Solutions ("LMPS"), its new dedicated Mortgage and Protection advice offering. The launch of LMPS is in response to increasing demand for Mortgage and Protection planning assistance from Lighthouse's customers, and Lighthouse will meet this demand by providing holistic Mortgage and Protection advice to consumers to enable them to achieve their goals without the need to visit the High Street or search the internet for unadvised deals. The LMPS offering will be initially available to a subset of the Group's Affinity Partners representing c1.7 million members.

The LMPS offering is fully compliant with the requirements of the Mortgage Market Review which came into force in April 2014 and will be available to both existing specialist Mortgage and Protection advisers within the Group and to new recruits who will be attracted by the market leading technology in place. This includes the mortgage software supplied by Intellflo through its Intelligent Office product suite and through partnerships with Mortgage Brain, Mortgage Trading Exchange and Assureweb. The range of customer solutions available is also expected to be attractive towards potential recruits.

UK consumers are substantially under-protected against the risk of life changing events, with a substantial majority of mortgage loans being completed without appropriate cover - for life, critical illness and income protection - being in place. This position demonstrates that consumers do not appear to be considering the full financial consequences of having a mortgage and the protection needs for themselves and their families which come with such a responsibility. This issue is something which Lighthouse is proactively seeking to address with the launch of its new LMPS proposition, in an environment where more than half of all mortgage lending is now intermediated and with gross mortgage lending forecast to be £240 billion p.a. by 2016 (Council of Mortgage Lenders statistics).

Paul Harris, Managing Director of LMPS, said: "The launch of LMPS, at a time of substantial change in the Mortgage and Protection market place with a move away from direct servicing by product manufacturers and towards advised servicing by intermediaries, will provide an important addition to the Group's range of services to customers. The LMPS offering will be based on market leading technology and independence supported by 'best of breed' products and should prove attractive to both advisers and customers."

Malcolm Streatfield, Chief Executive of Lighthouse Group plc, commented: "The Group is delighted to be launching this enhanced and dedicated service to its customers and advisers that seeks to address the significant under-protection of consumers in the UK and we look forward to the further development of this exciting initiative."

Andrew Holden, Director of one of Lighthouse's Affinity Partner groups, Parliament Hill, also commented: "The new Mortgage and Protection service from Lighthouse is a welcome development and will significantly enhance the advice offering to our members. We look forward to further developing our relationship with Lighthouse and promoting this service as an additional member benefit."

-Ends-

For further information, please contact:

Media enquiries:

About Lighthouse Group plc

As one of the UK's largest autonomous financial advice and Wealth Management Groups and winner of FT Businesses Large IFA of the Year Award for three years in succession 2010-2012, Lighthouse provides a comprehensive range of services to businesses and individuals and is retained by most of the major trades unions and other affinity groups to advise their combined membership of over five million individuals.

Lighthouse has been listed on AIM since 2000 and presents an integrated financial services company for investors, coupled with significant scale in terms of distribution through financial advisers and Wealth Managers and a fully diversified model.