Welcome to the Accessibility Hub
Our mission
One in ten UK adults are dyslexic. One in five are neurodiverse. Over 13 million of us are dealing with sight or hearing loss. Millions more face other kinds of accessibility challenges every single day.
We’re on a mission to do better with our communications. We’re committed to provide inclusive, accessible communications for all, and for our members, customers and employees to feel financially confident and independent.
If you’re a member or customer with an accessibility need, you can change the way we communicate with you or find assistive tools and technologies to support you.
If a loved one, relative or friend has an accessibility need and you’re looking to support them, you can change their communication preferences in our preference centre. See what support is available to you through our Care Concierge service, or contact our team if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
Tools and support
We offer our communications in a variety of different accessible formats. Find out more about assistive tools and technology available to you
Thinking differently
Learn what it’s like to live differently through other people’s experiences. Storytelling enables us to open our minds and start to think differently
Preference centre
If your needs change, please let us know so we can adapt the way we communicate with you
Making a difference
with dyslexic thinking
Ezekiel's Story
Hear Ezekiel’s experience living with Dyslexia
Transcript
I believe that not enough people understand dyslexia and how it affects people.
So, for example, the way it affects me versus the way it affects the next person with Dyslexia are two different things.
The way I see text, it seems like ants marching on the screen or on the paper.
Just be mindful that when it comes to sending text documents, especially important text documents it’s not the best to start sending it on a white sheet of paper with black text.
I think it might be a good idea to have some form of like QR code so that people can scan the text on their phone and then use whatever software aids with their reading.
Someone with dyslexia, it’s going to take them time, a bit longer to process things.
Just be very mindful and be patient.
It can affect us all
Many of us will experience the impact of an accessibility need at some stage in our lives. Whether that’s personally or through a loved one. The impact of not being able to make independent financial decisions can be really challenging. Our mission is to provide inclusive, accessible communications for all, and for our members to feel financially confident and independent.
2 million people living in the the UK with sight loss
Source: https://www.rnib.org.uk/
11 million people living in the UK with hearing loss
Source: https://rnid.org.uk/
Up to 10% of the UK are Dyslexic and 20% are neurodiverse
Source bdadyslexia.org.uk/
1 in 5 in the UK have a long-term illness, impairment or disability
Source: ons.gov.uk/
How we can support
Whether it’s now, in the future, or for a loved one
Care Concierge
Understand, find and fund later life care
Provided by experts with backgrounds in social care, nursing and care home agencies, the service helps employees understand and navigate all aspects of the later life care process.
Care Concierge is offered to all Annuity, Workplace and Later Life Mortgage customers. For Insurance customers, they need to have a policy taken out from the 20th of July 2023.
More about Care Concierge More about Care ConciergeVisual communications
We can send printed items, like statements and letters to you in various formats, including:
- Braille
- Large text
We'll aim to send all literature in the format you choose. If you get an item from us that isn’t in the right format, just let us know.
If there is anything in any of the literature we send you that you don’t understand, please get in touch so we can explain it to you.
Visit the preference centre Visit the preference centreAudible communications
We provide audible various formats for communications including:
- Screen readers including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver
- Text Relay may also be available for some communications
- We can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) translator via a third-party service
Visit Relay Visit Relay
Assistive technology
We are building our websites to be accessible and usable by as many people as possible. We offer a range of solutions to help you to get the best accessible experience on our sites to meet your individual requirements.
Most of our websites will detect and respond to any mobile device or tablet, resizing images and layout to fit correctly.
We are building our content to meet the requirements of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA Standard.
For example, on most of our sites you can use the accessibility features on your computer or install assistive technology to:
- Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
- Change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- We are also making our website text as simple as possible to understand.
- All text links, where possible will be written so that they make sense when read out of context.
Video communications
- Where videos are available, we use captions or transcripts
- We can’t currently provide audio description for all our videos, however we’re working hard to change this
Clear communications
- We write in plain English
- Where we use industry specific language, we explain what it means
- If it helps to speak to the same person each time you call, we will try to make sure this happens where we can
- If you want us to deal with a trusted family member or friend, in most circumstances you can give us verbal or written authority for them to communicate on your behalf
The Equality Act 2010
- We are committed to ensuring all our products and services are accessible to all customers and free from unlawful discrimination, under The Equality Act 2010.
Feedback
Please let us know if there are other ways, we can make it easier for you to access our services.
If you have difficulties using this website or accessing your documents in an alternative format, please let us know by emailing us.
Or write to us at: Group Customer Experience, 5th Floor, Calon, Four Central Square, Cardiff, CF10 1FS
Please bear with us, we know that some parts of this website are not fully accessible, but we are working on it:
- the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams do not have captions
- some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
- you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
- there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page
PDF document content is often generated by third-party software and may not always meet accessibility standards.
Most video content has captions or a transcript, but currently we can’t provide audio description for all our videos.
Contact us Contact usPreference centre
If your needs change, please let us know so we can adapt the way we communicate with you. Visit our preference centre.