Business Profile: Mortgages 4 Plymouth

Business Profile: Complete

25th September 2020

Business Profile: Nimrif RC

25th September 2020

Published by on 25th September 2020

It started with a broken foot and a job advert for toy sales, and now 40 years later, Tricia Kennedy is leading one of the best mortgage advisory companies in the South West. In these times a trustworthy and knowledgeable service is fundamental when planning your next move and Mortgages 4 Plymouth are here to serve just that. Tricia and her outstanding team of advisors have built an award-winning service and have been recognised for their commitment to looking after their clients. Tricia founded Mortgages 4 Plymouth in the year 2000, and she has been serving the people of Plymouth and the surrounding areas ever since.

Mortgage advising was never something Tricia imagined she would be interested in. 40 years ago; Tricia was on the lookout for a job involving sales. She came across a job advert for selling toys so she rang up the number on the advert, all though the number was actually for selling life insurance which was listed just below the toy sales advert, Tricia was not interested.

Around this time, Tricia had unfortunately broken a bone in her foot, this meant her foot was in a plaster cast and crutches were essential so finding a job and attending interviews was proving difficult. An unexpected phone call from the life insurance company turned things around very suddenly after they offered her a free 3-week training course in Swindon to learn all about life insurance and why people should have it, this made sense to fill in time while the plaster was on so she accepted.

Tricia completed the 3 weeks of training and took home lots of insightful knowledge about the industry, not to mention far more interest. As soon as she came home, the plaster cast came off using her own handiwork, (Which Tricia does not advise) the crutches were out of the window and off she went with this newfound excitement of advising people on life insurance. This then kick started her 40-year career in what is now known as one of the most regulated industries to work in.

Both Mortgages 4 Plymouth and Assurance 4 Life are run and founded by Tricia and are located side by side on Peverell Park Road. Assurance 4 Life collaborates and overlaps with Mortgages 4 Plymouth seamlessly. Tricia’s employees Oliver Tugwell and Charles Connaris work primarily for Assurance 4 Life, offering people the ability to have life cover, critical illness cover and income protection.

Mortgages 4 Plymouth and Assurance 4 Life are a part of the largest mortgage protection network in the UK called Primis. Primis is a product provider so they supply and negotiate with all the lenders and insurers to get the best rates for life assurance and mortgages. Tricia is very proud to be a part of this network and to have seen it grow from strength to strength over the years to become the number one network in the UK today.

Very Important Client Relations Manager: Miss Ellie

Mortgages 4 Plymouth have been a part of the Plymouth community for 20 years and are not going anywhere soon. Tricia and her team have been advising people right the way through the pandemic, ensuring the people of Plymouth are well looked after during this distressing time. Coronavirus is not registered as a critical illness, however, if one of their clients passed away from Covid-19, then a payout would be made. Paying out to clients with a critical illness is something Mortgages 4 Plymouth have been fully invested in. Critical illnesses such as; all cancers, strokes, heart attacks have all been paid out by the company due to the impact the illness has on their daily life as well as their family life. Being able to give this lump sum of money to the client when they need it most is what makes Tricia and her team so proud of the work they do.

Tricia and her team also offer a will writing service at the cost of £20, to anyone undertaking a review of their insurances.

As well as advising life insurance, Mortgages 4 Plymouth help the community in other ways for example; by supporting St. Luke’s charity and also helping the Forces. The Forces tend to struggle with their busy timetable, working away frequently, therefore, Mortgages 4 Plymouth like to make themselves available to them almost 24 hours a day. They have a Forces Help to Buy Scheme in place for first time buyers, with no upfront fees, a free consultation, help to build their credit scores and sometimes even counselling.

On top of helping the community, Mortgages 4 Plymouth offer training to their employees. Tricia has seen a lot of her team grow and progress through the ranks with their brilliant training schemes. Adam Young joined the team 6 years ago from University, having completed a degree, he worked initially as an administrator and they trained him to become a mortgage and protection advisor. He now holds outstanding testimonials which can be viewed on the Mortgages 4 Plymouth website. Following similar training, Toni and Charlotte have both been signed off as mortgage advisors. Similarly, Oliver is qualified in life and protection but is currently training to become a mortgage advisor as well. Charles is currently undergoing training to become a protection advisor and with a degree in marketing from America, he is also going to be taking over the social media side of the business.

Tricia has won many awards over the years and some would say, she has more than accomplished an outstanding achievement record over her career. Top Advisor Quality 2018, Outstanding Contribution to the Network 2019 and Hall of Fame 2020 are only a few recent awards that she has taken home as 1st prize.

Hall of Fame Award 2020

Tricia attended an awards evening back in February 2020 where she was nominated for The Marius Awards. It was simply a recognition event for everyone who had influenced the critical illness market. The ceremony was run by Scottish Widows, in memory of Dr Marius Bernard, who was a heart surgeon in South Africa and he and his brother Christian saw how the patients were suffering financially from illness. Marius talked to the industry providers and the critical illness plans were developed.

Due to the current pandemic, the housing market is notably struggling with demand. However, they have seen a higher rate of people looking to move house and have seen more purchases of houses from £300,000 plus. There has been an influx of demand for the South West especially because some city workers no longer need to go into the office and are therefore searching for a better working life with larger properties. There is no stamp duty till 1st April 2021 which makes buying second homes more tempting.

Due to safe and social distancing, an appointment with Mortgages 4 Plymouth will be achieved via a phone call or a video call. In these video or voice calls, Tricia and her team will just need to correlate the relevant information and ask a few questions to finalise everything. These appointments usually take no longer than half an hour because all of the documentation is promptly sent in before the appointment. In some ways, this is a more efficient way of doing things because it means the client can have an appointment wherever they may be located.

‘I love my job, but I am also proud to have developed and trained some truly remarkable staff.’ Said, Tricia

Ever since Tricia cut the plaster cast off her foot 40 years ago, she has worked solidly ever since and has devoted her time to teaching and developing her staff to follow in her footsteps. She is confident that when the time comes, the company will be in safe hands when she passes down the reins to Adam and Fran.

It is clear to us that Mortgages 4 Plymouth are committed to going out of their way to help people, whatever the situation they’re in which is what gives them the edge over their competitors.