Personal Pension Mis-selling Review

wary

atush wrote: »

I dont know of any DB pensions where you could not have deferred with decades of service.

If you were told that, it may not have been true. Do any of you concerned still have your original scheme booklet? have you searched online for one?

Thanks. It seems unlikely that I'll be able to get hold of the scheme booklet from that time but worth a try.

A general question following on from that please ... It has been said that company's DB pension scheme will usually have a minimum period before it will allow you to defer benefits upon leaving. Does this ordinarily include the years transferred in from your previous company's scheme? Or purely the number of years you've actually been with (& contributing into) the new scheme?

Kynthia

In my place a transfer - in overrode the minimum term and always meant a preserved pension when you left. However I can't speak for other schemes.

wary

Re my pursuit of a S32 mis-selling claim ... my former employer has now confirmed that they hold no details on me as my cessation of employment (1994) is more than 6 years ago. However, they have directed me to their pension scheme trustees although I don’t believe they were the trustees at the time. The actual transfer out from the scheme to a Section 32 was handled by my former employer’s own financial advisers.

Questions please:
1) As mentioned earlier, those employees who were being outsourced to the new company were not given the option to allow service/benefits accrued to date to remain in their DB scheme. Who would likely have made that decision? The employers, the trustees of the particular scheme (they had several schemes) or their financial advisers?

2) Presumably the SAR issued to my employers should cover any information held by their own financial advisers? Is it usual/compliant that they would have erased any record of their dealings with me (i.e. transfer of DB scheme to S32) after 6 years due to the Group’s former-employee retention policy?

3) My research indicates that my former employers closed their old schemes and consolidated into the one new scheme under the new trustees a few years ago, although some left their benefits frozen and these are handled by different trustees. Wrt trying to find details of the scheme’s rules back in 1994, details of my particular pension etc … am I flogging dead donkeys?!? I do at least now know the name of the scheme of which I was a member, but that was 22 years ago.

dunstonh

1) As mentioned earlier, those employees who were being outsourced to the new company were not given the option to allow service/benefits accrued to date to remain in their DB scheme. Who would likely have made that decision? The employers, the trustees of the particular scheme (they had several schemes) or their financial advisers?

The advisers would take their instruction from the employer.

2) Presumably the SAR issued to my employers should cover any information held by their own financial advisers? Is it usual/compliant that they would have erased any record of their dealings with me (i.e. transfer of DB scheme to S32) after 6 years due to the Group’s former-employee retention policy?

The SAR will only cover the employer. Not companies that the employer has used at various points in its history. Destruction of data by the employer is not unexpected after all this time.

3) My research indicates that my former employers closed their old schemes and consolidated into the one new scheme under the new trustees a few years ago, although some left their benefits frozen and these are handled by different trustees. Wrt trying to find details of the scheme’s rules back in 1994, details of my particular pension etc … am I flogging dead donkeys?!? I do at least now know the name of the scheme of which I was a member, but that was 22 years ago.

Not impossible but it would likely require someone holding onto old documentation that you happen to know and is willing to share with you.

wary

Thanks DunstonH. Re the second point, the advisers in question were actual employees of my former employer (not an outside firm that they used), so I guess they should be covered by my SAR. Thought they'd keep documentation longer than 6 years but as you say, probably not after 22 years.

With that in mind, if I do pursue a mis-selling case with Ombudsman, my main argument will be that the FA should have advised me that I’d be worse off not transferring into the new company’s scheme. But would my case be specifically against the Financial Adviser division of my former employer, or against my former employer themselves given that the FAs are their employees? If the former, could I legitimately use my intended secondary argument that we shouldn’t have been forced to transfer out of the scheme at all, if the FAs were simply following employer instructions?

atush

wary wrote: »

Thanks. It seems unlikely that I'll be able to get hold of the scheme booklet from that time but worth a try.

A general question following on from that please ... It has been said that company's DB pension scheme will usually have a minimum period before it will allow you to defer benefits upon leaving. Does this ordinarily include the years transferred in from your previous company's scheme? Or purely the number of years you've actually been with (& contributing into) the new scheme?

I am pretty sure you can either find one online, or ask to be provided with one.

I am not certain they can deny you one under law?

dunstonh

The advisers should hold documentation for life. So, in that respect they should have some.