Jayne83

Jayne83

Hi I'm a newbie, and possibly in wrong place, can anyone give any help or advice on contracting out of serps, I have heard different things that you can claim back like ppi thanks

dunstonh

I have heard different things that you can claim back like ppi thanks

Some claims companies thought they could get their claws into this prior to PPI. Indeed, the regulator decided to take a look and it found a potential failure rate of just 1.5%. That is tiny. They published a guide here with a useful flowchart:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100210151716/moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/pdfs/s2p_wrongly_advised_ink.pdf

Following that review, the claims companies pulled out of SERPS complaints apart from a small handful. Those handful also operated pension transfer referrals where they would initiate a complaint but then tell you transfer the pension and then earn our of the pension transfer. The complaint was just an attempt to find out about your pension to allow them to transfer it.

All this was before the govt introduced the single state pension and the ability to take earlier retirement on contracted funds and a 25% tax free lump sum. All these things have made contracting out a much better thing for most people.

To give you an idea of how unlikely it is that a SERPS complaint is going to succeed, you just have to look at the FOS complaints stats. In the whole of 2015/16 they had 218 complaints and only 16 were upheld. Those complaints are not just about contracting out but anything to do with contracting out. It could be an admin issue on a contracted out pension for example. 5% uphold rate is the lowest of any type of financial product. In 2016/17 they received just 89 complaints in the first 6 months following by none in Q3. Q4 are not yet published. It is such a non-issue.

Silvertabby

Why did you contract out? Was it was because you joined a contracted out occupational pension scheme?

I know some people have been saying that contracting out 'will be the next PPI' but they're in cloud-cuckoo land. If 83 is your year of birth, then you will have the advantage of having enough time to accrue the full £159 per week single tier State pension in addition to having paid reduced NI AND the benefit of your contracted out pension. In short, you may well be better off under the new rules and so won't need to be compensated for any 'loss'.