After 35 years with the same lender, she goes whole of market
While many in their mid-50s are considering when they might retire, Alison Dearman (pictured) has embarked on a new stage in her career, as a whole of market mortgage broker. Having spent over 35 years, working as a mortgage adviser for the same major lender, she’s discovering a world of new borrowing options.
What’s more, Dearman has developed a new found respect for the work that mortgage brokers do, and is proof that it is never too late to make a big move in your career.
The huge change to Dearman’s working life came after the building society at which she had worked since 1989 made her redundant in December. “I was there for a long time and when I first found out, I was devastated,” she told Mortgage Introducer. “But by the next day, I wasn't devastated anymore. I just thought, ‘you know what, it's going to open up opportunities for me.’ It's the best thing that ever happened to me because I was stuck. You definitely become institutionalised. Although I enjoyed my job, it was very much within my comfort zone. I was obviously well established, I knew the systems and policies, everything inside out, back to front and upside down. When I left, I thought that's it, the age I'm at now, I'm going to go and do something completely different or not do anything at all, and that lasted about a month. I got approached by a broker and here I am now.”
Dearman is working in a self-employed capacity for Chris Law Mortgage Services, and is clearly relishing learning a wealth of products beyond those offered by the lender with whom she had been employed all her working life. “I am absolutely loving it,” she said. “It's a massive shift, not only having to learn new things, but having to unlearn what I already knew because it doesn't apply in the rest of the marketplace, so it has been a transition. I've learnt about products I had absolutely no idea ever existed, working for one bank. That's the biggest thing I’ve learned, I guess, is how wide the marketplace is and how many different solutions there are available to people. I was very blinkered, so it's opened my eyes.”
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“Mortgage brokers work diligently and ethically”
Stepping into a new arena of the financial services industry, Dearman has reappraised her view of whole of market mortgage brokers. “My view of brokers, that was maybe coloured from working for my previous employer, was always that it was a little bit of a lawless, no compliance kind of landscape and it isn't at all,” she said. “The people I'm working with work as diligently and ethically as I ever worked being with a big corporate. The compliance, the due diligence, the Consumer Duty is all such a big part of the brokerage, and I never thought it would be.”
Has her respect for brokers grown? “Yes, absolutely,” she said. “The work that I see going into every customer where I am now, following all the way through. If rates change, we're on the phone to them – ‘there's a new rate out, you could save £20 a month on this new rate’, that was never done. I don't think most banks would do that. That's part of what clients pay a broker fee for, is for that monitoring and that reassurance, that if between now and when you complete in four months’ time, there's a better deal, you'll know about it.”
Although, Dearman’s new role has vastly widened her professional horizons, she has been able to retain the customer interaction that she loves and that kept her with her previous employer for so long. “I stayed in a customer-facing role all the way through,” she said. “I never had any wish to move because it's what I enjoy doing and it is why I got up in the morning. I wouldn't ever have wanted to move into management. I just love the fact that you get such an insight into people's lives, and you can have such a big effect on their lives. I've sat in front of customers and I've laughed with them, I've cried with them. I just love that interaction with a customer, and I can't imagine doing anything different.”
Dearman’s story is arguably inspiring for anyone of any age who is considering a career move, and possibly struggling with their decision. “I knew it was going to be a learning curve, but I knew I could do it and make a success of it,” she said. She urged her industry colleagues: “Move around, get different experiences with different employers. Don't get tied down to one thing - it's never too late.”
