How to chase letters of authority without losing a week to providers

To chase letters of authority without losing a week, send one complete request to the right place, log the date, chase in writing on fixed days and check each answer against a list of what you asked for. Most of the time is lost before the provider starts work and after it thinks it has finished, with a request sent to the wrong team, on the wrong form, with a signature the provider will not accept, and an answer that leaves out half of what the paraplanner needs. An AI worker can prepare each letter for approval, then do the sending, logging, chasing and checking. Phone calls, provider queries and the judgement of whether you know enough to advise stay with your people.

Why do letters of authority take so long?

A letter of authority is the client's signed permission for a provider to release details of their plan to the adviser. Research by NextWealth for Origo in 2021 found that providers say they turn one round in one to ten days, while advisers wait weeks and sometimes months. Providers count from the day everything they need is on their system. The firm's wait starts when the client signs.

The same research named what fills the gap: forms filled in by hand, a different form and process at each provider, the need for a signature in ink, no named contact, and chasing for updates. The provider's own form and its insistence on ink are for the provider to change, and the rest is in your hands.

Providers and platforms are working on the problem too. The Fix LoA Action Group, founded by Pension Lab in 2024, brings together more than 70 organisations from advice firms, platforms and providers, and since November 2025 it has been led by Criterion, the independent integration standards body, which has also written LoA Data Checklist Standards.

How to chase letters of authority, step by step

1. List every plan at the first meeting. Provider, plan number, type of plan and the client's name and address as the provider holds them. A married name or an old address on the provider's record can get a request rejected.

2. Decide what you need from each plan. Keep a checklist for each type of plan: for a pension, say, the current and transfer values, charges, funds held, any guarantees or protected benefits, and death benefits. Ask for "full details" and you get the provider's standard letter.

3. Get the authority signed in a form the provider accepts. Keep a note for each provider of whether it wants its own form and whether it takes an electronic signature. Collect every signature in one sitting.

4. Send it to the right place. Origo's Unipass Letter of Authority service is free for advisers: it passes requests digitally to the providers that subscribe and routes the rest by secure email to the correct team, and it lets you attach your checklist of data items to each request. To use it the firm needs a Unipass Identity, which is also free. For providers you write to directly, keep the address of the team that handles these requests.

5. Log the date and set the chase days. One line per plan: sent, acknowledged, answered, complete. Decide the intervals once, for example a written chase at five working days and again at ten, and a phone call after that.

6. Check each answer against the checklist. Go back the same day for the missing items, by name.

7. Hand over a complete pack. The paraplanner gets every plan's details in one place, with the source of each figure.

Which of the chasing can an AI worker do?

Much of the work is lists, letters and dates, which an AI worker can take on. In this job it can prepare a letter for each plan from the adviser's list, with the right checklist attached, for your administrator to approve. Once a letter is approved, it can send it to the client with the request to sign, in wording the firm agreed beforehand, and submit it to the provider when it comes back signed. It can keep the log, chase each provider in writing on the days you set, compare every answer with the checklist and go back for the gaps. It can file what arrives with its source and list each morning what is still waiting. The role for chasing clients for documents, which chases providers too, describes the tracking and chasing, and fact-find and suitability paperwork covers the client's side of the file. The fact-finds, suitability reports and annual reviews around the same advice are on the page for financial advisers.

None of this is advice: the request to sign and the chasers are routine wording, approved once, and each letter is approved each time.

What stays with your team, and why?

• Approval of each letter. A letter names one client and their plans, so a person checks it before it goes to the client or to a provider.

• Phone calls. Some providers only move when somebody rings. The agent tells your administrator who to call and about which plan.

• Anything a provider queries. A mismatch in the client's details, a request for more identification or a refusal goes to the administrator.

• Whether you know enough. FCA rules bar a personal recommendation where the firm has not obtained the necessary information. Whether the pack is enough to advise on is the adviser's and the paraplanner's call. The agent can only say whether it matches the checklist.

• Anything a client asks about their plans. A client who replies to the signature request with a question about their pension gets the adviser, not an answer.

What to have ready before you start

• Your paraplanner's checklist for each type of plan.

• The list of providers, with the form, signature and address each wants.

• Your chase intervals.

• The approved wording for the request to sign and for each chaser.

Then count, for your last ten new clients, the days from signature to a complete pack. The wider case is in how to scale a financial advice firm without hiring more staff.

The advice would stay with your advisers, and an AI worker would prepare each letter of authority for your administrator to approve, then track and chase it with the provider. Talk to our AI agent about the new clients still waiting on providers.