What is a letter of authority in financial advice?

A letter of authority, often shortened to LOA, is a document a client signs to tell a pension, investment or insurance provider that it may release information about their plans to a named financial advice firm. It is how an adviser finds out what a client already holds before advising on it. It is an industry document, not a statutory form: each provider decides what it will accept.

What does a letter of authority say?

The wording is short. In one advice firm's letter for pensions the client authorises "third parties holding information relating to my existing pension policies" to provide it to the advice firm "for the purpose of advising me". The letter then asks for what a provider needs in order to find the plan: the client's full name and any previous name, date of birth, National Insurance number, current and previous addresses, the provider's name and the policy numbers. It ends with a signature and a date, and a line saying the authority stays in place until the client cancels it in writing.

NS&I's own form shows what a provider can add. It names the advice firm with its Financial Conduct Authority registration number. It lists what may be shared: balances and valuations, statements, maturity dates and transactions. It may need the client's signature to be witnessed. It asks for a separate letter from each holder of a joint holding, and it says NS&I may refuse to share anything if the firm does not pass its authentication or is no longer authorised.

Why do letters of authority hold up advice?

An adviser cannot recommend what to do with a pension without knowing its value, its charges, its funds and any guarantees attached to it. The client may not know. The provider does, and will not tell the adviser without the client's authority. So every new client with four old pensions means four letters, to four providers, each with its own requirements and its own way of receiving it, and the advice waits for the slowest reply.

Royal London, writing in June 2026, called the traditional process a long-standing pain point for advisers and named the causes: paper forms, wet signatures and unsecure email. It now takes requests through a single digital portal, Origo's Unipass Letter of Authority, and reports fewer rejections for missing information. Where a client's provider does not use a portal, the letter still goes the older way.

Who handles letters of authority in an advice firm?

In a financial advice firm the letters usually belong to a client administrator or a paraplanner. The firm has its own letter and uses a provider's own form where the provider insists on one. Our guide to chasing letters of authority takes the steps one by one. What fills the day is the replies. A provider replies with half the information. Another rejects the letter because the address does not match its records. A third sends everything, by post, to the old office. Each reply has to be read against what was asked for, and the gaps asked for again.

The work is a matter of tracking which letter went where, on what date, what came back and what is still missing. None of it is advice.

What is a letter of authority confused with?

• A power of attorney. In England and Wales a lasting power of attorney is a registered legal document that lets someone make decisions on another person's behalf. A letter of authority in the documents we read lets a provider release information for the purpose of advice. It gives the adviser nothing to decide.

• An instruction to move money or change adviser. The letters quoted here are the kind used to gather information. Making the firm the adviser that services a plan is a separate request: Standard Life and Aberdeen each call it a change of agency and take it on a form of its own. Switching funds or transferring a pension are separate instructions again, with their own forms, and in an advice firm they follow a recommendation the client has accepted.

• One standard form. There is not one. What the provider accepts is what counts, and it is worth keeping a note of each provider's requirements.

• Consent given once, for everything. A letter names a firm and, usually, the plans. A plan found later may need a letter of its own.

Which parts can an AI worker take on?

Letters of authority suit an AI worker because the job is a register and a calendar. An AI worker can prepare each letter from the details on the client record for your administrator to approve, send the approved letter for signature, log the date it went, chase the provider on the dates you set, read each reply against the list of what was asked for, and tell the administrator exactly what is still outstanding and from whom. The role is described on our pages for chasing clients for documents and fact-find and suitability paperwork.

What stays with a person?

The advice stays with a person, and so does everything near it. An AI worker in an FCA-regulated firm does paperwork, never advice. Routine requests and reminders go in wording the adviser has approved in advance. Anything that touches one client's circumstances waits for the adviser's approval each time. What the information means for the client, whether a plan should be kept or moved and what goes in the suitability report are the adviser's to decide. A provider that will only deal by telephone is called by a person. Our article on scaling a financial advice firm without hiring shows where this sits among the firm's other admin. This article describes the documents as read on 3 October 2026.

For an advice firm the register and the chasing would come off your administrator's desk, with every letter of authority logged and chased on time and the adviser's judgement untouched. If your advice waits on provider replies, talk to our AI agent.