Pension Updates

Horace

I have a question - are pension providers legally obliged to send you pension updates annually?

The reason I ask is that I had a row yesterday with my ex employer because their pension scheme BPAS didnt send me an update last year or this, they turned round and told me that they took the decision in 2006 not to send any updates out to anyone. Now my pension with them is frozen but I have another pension plan that I had to close when I started working for now ex employer which sends me updates annually. I am really quite angry about this and their lacksidaisical comments. How am I supposed to know what my pension will be if they have stopped sending updates?

I shall wait until after Christmas to see if I can prise a transfer value out of them as I have a good mind to transfer it elsewhere and stick two fingers up to them:D

Hoping that someone will be able to let me know whether or not pensions are supposed to keep pensioners updated (not that I reached retirement age yet).

dunstonh

I have a question - are pension providers legally obliged to send you pension updates annually?

No. Money purchase scehemes do but final salary schemes do not.

How am I supposed to know what my pension will be if they have stopped sending updates?

I am going to assume its final salary from your terminology (e.g. frozen - as that cannot apply to money purchase). In which case, you dont need updates every year as the figures are based on your time of service against your final pensionable income. That doesnt change each year bar some indexation.

I shall wait until after Christmas to see if I can prise a transfer value out of them as I have a good mind to transfer it elsewhere and stick two fingers up to them:D

Easier said then done. You wont find many providers willing to take on a final salary scheme transfer without you getting it signed off first by an IFA. Your justification would not be sufficient for an IFA to agree for it to be transferred.

Horace

Thanks I was lucky in that the pension was a final salary thing. At least I have managed to prise out of them an update showing what my pension is likely to be.

I am now self-employed so I shall be making other arrangements, so I guess its best to keep the pension where it is because it has some good benefits attached to it that are applicable even in its frozen state.