Canada Life Home Finance has announced a new range of workshops to help mortgage advisers become equity release-qualified in 2019.

The workshops, which are free of charge to attend, will be run nationwide in February.

Last year, over 300 unqualified advisers attending Canada Life’s fully booked workshops.

The training sessions are provided in collaboration with training and consulting firm Fortica Ltd, and give advisers currently not qualified to offer equity release the training needed to pass the required exam.

Recent research by Canada Life finds that 13% of mortgage advisers aren’t qualified to offer equity release.

Alice Watson, head of marketing and communications at Canada Life Home Finance, said: “The equity release sector is booming, and at Canada Life we have a key role to play in helping mortgage advisers meet this demand and support the market’s growth. As such, we’re organising another round of our in-demand workshops for 2019, supporting those who aren’t yet qualified to get the training they need to tap into the product’s growing popularity.

“We had a phenomenal response to last year’s sessions, with over 300 unqualified advisers attending and a second round of workshops being added in the summer to meet the demand we saw. This year we’re launching another series of exam workshops as part of a larger range of events we are hosting throughout the year to demonstrate Canada Life’s strong commitment to supporting advisers in the later-life lending market.”