Peter William Brazier – Obituary

Independent Financial Adviser
25.07.1939 – 18.04.2020

Clients will be sad to hear that our retired colleague, Peter Brazier, passed away, in Kingston Hospital on the 18th April after a short battle with Covid-19. 

Whilst Peter celebrated his retirement in 2005, we still actively advise the clients, who were with us when he retired. Peter still enjoyed attending the occasional meeting and client lunch, the last one being in February this year. 

Today there are people able to retire whom Peter had started to build the financial foundations of their retirement plans many years ago. I wanted to pay due respect to his service to this industry and his clients of whom he thought so much.

Peter commenced his career in financial services working for H W Gibbs Insurance Brokers in London. On leaving them he joined Royal Insurance and so began a career in which he would guide many people with their savings and retirement funds.  

He quickly rose through the ranks and became one of the company’s leading consultants, his success meant that he was a regular attendee on the Royal Life’s Overseas Conventions. It was on one such trip, a cruise around the Greek islands in 1987, that Peter and Margaret took Fiona and I under their wings. At the end of the first evening we all attended a black tie dinner, and at the end Peter got hold of a couple of extra bottles of champagne from the bar to finish the evening off. All of us got smashed at the Royals expense on the free champagne, he could be a rascal at times. 

The journey the following morning from the hotel through Athens to the port of Piraeus was full of people nursing hangovers, all thanks to Peter.  

Peter was a much-respected senior member of the sales team, everyone looked up to him. I first met him when I joined the Royal Life in 1984, at that time Peter was one of the Royal Life’s top pension consultants in the Country. 

He had a passion to make sure that his clients received the right advice.  When working at Enfield Branch you could occasionally hear him venting his frustration at Liverpool Head Office because they had got something wrong. In fact, he could really blow his top, papers could fly off his desk, in the end we moved him into a quiet corner of the office so that we couldn’t hear him losing it with Liverpool. I often thought he would not make it to 50, let alone retirement! It was this passion that everything should be right for the client that drove Peter. Those of us who worked with him at Enfield learnt so much from him. The clients always came first. 

Many of the younger consultants in the team looked up to him and he became a mentor to all of us, he always had time to help and guide us.

As the consultant’s role slowly changed Peter was promoted to a Corporate Pensions Manager for the Royal Life, covering a much larger area and guiding the sales team with his pension’s knowledge. 

After regulation of the industry in 1987 insurance companies in the UK began to go through major structural changes and in 1992, at the age of 52, Peter received a tap on his shoulder and was offered early retirement from the Royal Life.

I remember speaking with him at the time, he was devastated, personally I thought it could be the best thing for his career and I, with others that knew him, encouraged him to become an Independent Financial Adviser.

Peter didn’t do it by half, he took the Chartered Insurance Institute’s AFPC examinations and within a short period of two years he had attained the CII’s Advanced Financial Planning Certificate. The examinations take hundreds of hours of study, and some in our industry could never pass them, Peter breezed through them.

Peter set up an advising business which was initially tied to Royal Life. At Rosemount we would assist him and carry out any independent work that he needed to do, and he started to enjoy his new found freedom working with other companies. 

He joined Rosemount full time in February 1994.

I was delighted when Peter chose to join us, his standard of advising was one of the best I knew, his commitment to giving the right advise to clients was paramount.  Improving the lives of the clients we advise was always his goal.

We had great fun and an excellent time working together, the years flew by, and we still act for almost all of his clients today.

As an Independent Financial Adviser, he was outstanding. If everyone in our industry had the same standards as Peter our industry would not need some of the regulation that it has.

Peter was married to Margaret and they were both very proud of their Daughter’s Jayne and Sonya, who both enjoy successful careers.

Over the years we became good friends and we enjoyed many games of golf and lunches, his counsel could be wise and I very much enjoyed our friendship. You could always pull his leg and we never left him alone when the greens at Hadley Wood were not up to the standard he always said they would be.

He joined Hadley Wood Golf Club in 2001, he was a very competitive golfer, it was only as he got older and he lost the length that we have when we are younger that he became easier for me to beat. He loved being a member there and he became very active, acting as the Colonel at Martin Earle’s Drive in, it was a role perfect for him!

Having retired in 2005, Peters retirement days darkened when Margaret passed away in 2015. During the winter that followed I asked him if he would like to return to the office to work one day a week to help with a project we were working on, as spring 2016 came, golf returned and he slowly adapted. He returned to work in the office for one more winter in 2016, after which he returned to full retirement. He did say afterwards that it helped the dark winter days of 2015 pass a little easier, I was grateful that we could help him through that dark time.

With his normal ebullient manner returning Peter learnt how to live with the pain of Margaret’s loss and his life turned to a new normal. Even though he appeared to be enjoying himself he would remind me of how much he missed Margaret. 

He spent plenty of time at the golf club and made sure that he also spent time with Jayne, Rod, Sonya and his grandchildren Freddy and Milly all of whom he was immensely proud of.

Peter worked his entire career in Insurance and the financial services industry. His record was one of which he could be duly proud, there are many clients that can thank Peter Brazier for his planning skills for their ability to fund their retirement.

Putting it as simply as I can, he was an outstanding Independent Financial Adviser and a thoroughly decent human being.

He will always be fondly remembered and sadly missed by all that knew him.

Thanks for the memories Pete.

Andy

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