Most financial companies have two sets of people to satisfy: their customers and their shareholders. When those interests pull in different directions, something has to give. We removed that tension entirely by never having shareholders in the first place. Royal London is a mutual, owned by its eligible customers, and that single structural fact shapes every decision we make.

In practice it means profit is not something we extract and send elsewhere. It is reinvested into better products, lower charges, stronger service, and ProfitShare awards paid directly into eligible customers' plans — more than £2bn to date. It also means we can take a longer view. We can hold an investment through a rough patch, keep a service open because vulnerable customers rely on it, or spend money making a bereavement claim easier rather than faster to decline.

Today we look after the pensions, protection and investments of millions of people across the UK, alongside thousands of employers, trustees and financial advisers who choose us on behalf of others. We are proud of that scale, but the measure that matters more to us is whether a customer feels genuinely better off for having dealt with us — particularly at the hardest moments, when someone has died, a diagnosis has landed, or the money simply is not stretching far enough.

Our purpose is to protect today and invest in tomorrow, together we are mutually responsible. That is not a slogan we keep for the annual report. It is why we campaign publicly on the pensions issues that hold people back, from the billions sitting in lost and forgotten pots to the resilience gap that leaves millions of UK households one setback away from real hardship.

As a large long-term investor we also carry responsibility for where customers' money goes. We vote our shares, challenge boards on climate transition plans and executive pay, and publish what we find. We would rather use our influence to improve a company than quietly sell the shares and let someone else inherit the problem.