The report said that younger homeowners are considering including equity release in their financial planning more than their older counterparts. Almost a fifth (15%) of homeowners aged 40-64 surveyed by Canada Life said they are thinking about or planning to release equity from their property, compared to 9% of those aged 65 or older.

The average age homeowners would consider releasing equity from their property to supplement retirement income at was 66.

An additional 12% of homeowners over 40 said they plan on downsizing their property to fund their retirement.

Those who said they are not planning to release equity from their property were driven by wanting their property wealth to go to their family (36%), thinking equity release has a bad reputation (28%), not wanting to hold debt in retirement (26%), reading negative media coverage of equity release (20%), selling property outright and/or downsizing (16%), and believing equity release is too expensive (15%).

Research was conducted among 1,020 UK homeowners over 40 years old by Opinium Research on behalf of Canada Life between 26-31 March.

A separate report from Key Partnerships showed that the number of equity release products has hit a new high with a 21% rise in plans on the market since the start of the year to 769.

The number of plans has more than doubled in the past two years and Key Partnerships said that the growth in products underlines "the need for advisers to pay close attention to changes in product features, and for those who do not regulalrly advise on equity release to set up a referral relationship with a specialist adviser who full understands the market."