Employers finding financial products for staff

More and more Britons are taking out financial products found for them by their employers.

While company pensions have been around for decades, data from MoneyExpert.com and Thomsons Online shows that financial products are now diversifying with the UK's workforce trusting their employer to find products like credit cards and car insurance as well.

In the next 12 months some 13.2 million people are planning to source more than 59 million financial services products through their employer.

"Employees are increasingly turning to their employers for help in managing their finances," said Michael Whitfield of employee benefits consultant Thomsons Online Benefits.

"As the percentage of employers offering flexible benefits increases, this trend will continue to grow and worksite marketing will become much more important as a distribution channel for financial services products."

In the last year employees have taken out more than 44 million financial services products through their employers, research from Thomsons and MoneyExpert shows, and this is set to grow 34 per cent this year.

Sean Gardner of MoneyExpert commented: "The retail financial services market is becoming increasingly crowded, with thousands of different products to choose from.

"This can be confusing for people and even when they have decided which product to apply for, there is no guarantee that their applications will be accepted because banks are becoming increasingly selective in who they lend money to."

And these factors are adding to the appeal of the growth of work-based financial products.

"This helps explain why our research suggests that over the next 12 months, over 162,000 financial services products are likely to be sourced through the workplace every day," Mr Gardener noted.

Pensions are still the most popular employer-sourced financial product - making up 38 per cent of work-based financial products sold in the last 12 months.

But other areas of finances are catching up.

More than 2.5 million people took out a credit card found by their employer in the last year, making up 11 per cent of all work-based financial products sold.

And car insurance is an even more popular choice, making up 19 per cent of employer-sourced products.