Press Releases

Two years on from pension freedoms, trustees and employers need to do more to safeguard over £100bn of defined benefit (DB) pensions at risk from poor decisions and scams.

trustees and employers need to do more to safeguard over £100bn of defined benefit (DB) pensions at risk from poor decisions and scams.

James Mullins, Head of Risk Transfer responds to the findings of the April edition of our Buy-in Monitoring Service.

Employers have a 12% higher chance of attracting the most talented candidates if they advertise the role’s ‘financial security’ benefits, such as employer pension contributions, according to our new research.

Hymans Robertson, has launched an ‘on demand’ cashflow, funding and risk analytics service. This is in response to a changing pension landscape where freedom and choice can have a material impact on membership and the future funding, risk and cashflow outlook of schemes. 

The under 40s don’t have to make an ‘either/or’ choice between Lifetime ISA (LISA) and pensions, but it is vital they consider tax efficiency when they make decisions, warns Hymans Robertson, the leading pensions and benefits consultancy. 

“The heightened focus on managing asset cashflows to meet liability cashflows is very welcome. However, trustees may be surprised to find out that the models used to measure and manage risk and return typically don’t allow for the primary reason schemes hold assets: i.e. for income to pay the pensions promised. Given this, how confident can trustees be in model driven asset recommendations?

We dedicate 2% of our annual profits to an extensive list of charities working with communities the length and breadth of Britain. In 2016, this amounted to an impressive £146,292, to be divided between our three core charitable areas.

Steven Baxter, head of longevity research at Club Vita responds to the findings that the universal State Pension age (SPa) will be retained in reflection of a narrowing socio-economic longevity gap and bringing good news for intergenerational fairness. A balance needs to be struck in society between avoiding pensioner poverty and ensuring intergenerational fairness.

The CWU’s proposals for greater pension risk sharing between employers and employees for Royal Mail’s pension scheme take us back to the future. Back in the 1970s DB pension schemes had these type of pressure release valves which successive layers of legislation have stripped away.

FCA’s publication of proposals for final salary pension mis-selling redress underscores the need for DB scheme members to be better supported. If schemes facilitated the advice process this could save £4bn in advice costs across UK DB, and help the 1 million DB members likely to explore their options over the next 10-20 years make better decisions.

In this Sixty Second Summary we provide an overview of Philip Hammond's Spring Budget announcements relating to QROPS transfers, money purchase annual allowance and other items.

The increased tax take could be at the expense of people having enough to take them through retirement. Trustees have a moral duty to support scheme members with complex choices at retirement