Equitable Life with profits pension / takeover.

[Deleted User]

pensionpawn wrote: »

Yes, just under £28k. Called them today and an automated message said that they are still calculating the uplifts which will not complete until the second half of the month.

In that case you should have received piles of paper in August 2019 outlining your options and asking you to pick a fund to put your money in after the sale goes through. If you didn’t get it then there is some kind of an issue, e.g. they don’t have your current address.

Regardless, your funds will have been “uplifted” and will be earning a low interest rate at this point in time. You should be able to contact them and direct how you want the money to be invested.

pensionpawn

Deleted_User wrote: »

In that case you should have received piles of paper in August 2019 outlining your options and asking you to pick a fund to put your money in after the sale goes through. If you didn’t get it then there is some kind of an issue, e.g. they don’t have your current address.

Regardless, your funds will have been “uplifted” and will be earning a low interest rate at this point in time. You should be able to contact them and direct how you want the money to be invested.

They have my address as I received a statement for April 2019 just before Christmas. I just have no correspondence related to the takeover by Utmost. My pension is through a group (company) scheme and I have not heard from them either. I made many phone calls in 2019 to both the group administrators and EL who both redirected me to the other party. I never received a voting pack and have not been kept in the loop. Disgraceful really.

[Deleted User]

pensionpawn wrote: »

They have my address as I received a statement for April 2019 just before Christmas. I just have no correspondence related to the takeover by Utmost. My pension is through a group (company) scheme and I have not heard from them either. I made many phone calls in 2019 to both the group administrators and EL who both redirected me to the other party. I never received a voting pack and have not been kept in the loop. Disgraceful really.

I think EL is in the right. Your relationship is with your group administrators who should be dealing with EL. Go after whoever administers the pension. They totally are responsible for telling you what they are doing with your money.

Joey_Soap

pensionpawn wrote: »

They have my address as I received a statement for April 2019 just before Christmas. I just have no correspondence related to the takeover by Utmost. My pension is through a group (company) scheme and I have not heard from them either. I made many phone calls in 2019 to both the group administrators and EL who both redirected me to the other party. I never received a voting pack and have not been kept in the loop. Disgraceful really.

Would the admin people be Mercers by any chance? I have the exact same situation. Nobody I have spoken to at Mercers has the faintest idea anything is going on. I am 100 per cent in the dark over it all.

Joey_Soap

Hi all, in December I had my with profits AVC statement and it says the policy value is £3138.22p. Does anyone have a clue what this is likely to be worth after the uplift to Utmost please?


Thanks.


JS.

pafpcg

Joey_Soap wrote: »

Hi all, in December I had my with profits AVC statement and it says the policy value is £3138.22p. Does anyone have a clue what this is likely to be worth after the uplift to Utmost please?

Does the statement define what the "policy value" actually means? Does the figure include a "Capital Distribution" amount?
If the policy were a basic "with profits" policy with Equitable directly, and the policy value was the value before any capital distribution, then the most optimistic value for your fund would be the policy value plus an uplift of between 65% & 75%. BUT, if you're in a group scheme then different terms may apply. In any case, the policy value used to calculate the uplift value excludes premiums paid since 31-Dec-2017 (so you'd need to check your 2017 statement). The actual level of the uplift has yet to be announced.

Joey_Soap

pafpcg wrote: »

Does the statement define what the "policy value" actually means? Does the figure include a "Capital Distribution" amount?
If the policy were a basic "with profits" policy with Equitable directly, and the policy value was the value before any capital distribution, then the most optimistic value for your fund would be the policy value plus an uplift of between 65% & 75%. BUT, if you're in a group scheme then different terms may apply. In any case, the policy value used to calculate the uplift value excludes premiums paid since 31-Dec-2017 (so you'd need to check your 2017 statement). The actual level of the uplift has yet to be announced.

Thanks, I've been guessing £5 to £5.5k.


JS

Scot_39

Joey_Soap wrote: »

Hi all, in December I had my with profits AVC statement and it says the policy value is £3138.22p. Does anyone have a clue what this is likely to be worth after the uplift to Utmost please?

Joey - as per pafpcg response the answer is not 100% obvious - but hopefully you may be able to get the exact figure soon enough.
I didn't follow the AVC group scheme info in packs too closely - as my AVCs were merged into my private policy years back - but press articles were quoting uplifts - at least primary for all members - group and otherwise.
The real problem I suspect given problems other report above ( having heard nothing or failed to get answers from their schemes ) for some in your position will be the delays added by your AVC scheme administrators. ( I just got a statement from one such outfit for one of my old AVC schemes - letter dated Jun - covering my policy value in Apr - arrived more than 6 months later - just after xmas - quite poor service to my mind.)

I - and others - had a mix of with-profits and unit-linked at EL - from when EL was my main private and then for a while in a group AVC scheme at equitable - there is no uplift at all on the unit linked funds - these effectively just transfer to Utmost as admin - staying with existing underlying fund managers ( AIS etc ).

The "with profits" uplift - is for most members a combination of a fixed /common to all primary uplift and a more tailored secondary - applied only to members funds in the EL "with profits" scheme. Utmost even with Jan updates still only quote a range - from 65-75% - for primary - and no new details for secondaries - but I suspect now must surely know the initial figures for final actuarial / accounts approval - as they should have started processing data last week - based on Dec 31st values. The last set of supplementaries issued Q3 / Q4 by EL were speculating at 72% primary of Dec value - which is applied to the base policy value - excluding any impact of recent contributions over last 2 years. Some members also get the additional - potentionally non-trivial - some say mainly age related - secondary uplift.

Anyway - to my recollection EL historically in places like annual statements - quote with profits policy values seperately from any unit linked funds - and including the existing 35% capital distribution (like on my last statement - policy value £xxxxxx including a capital distribution of £yyyyy ( where yyyyy=35% of your base policy value = (xxxxxx-yyyyy) or (xxxxxx/1.35) etc ).

My August personal illustatration - quotes the underlying base value ( I had to work it out from the annual statements - not explicitly quoted there by EL ) without the 35% distribution - and was done with a primary of 68% - and a secondary uplift in the teens - so over 80% combined uplift.

I am a little worried that you appear to have had no information from EL or the AVC scheme administrators - but from others reporting poor informaton I suppose it could just be that - but EL have several different generations of schemes and investment paths - not all are impacted the same - not sure this lack of information excludes you from the scheme uplift - but is a concern.

However if your £3138 is impacted by the uplift - e.g. was purely in with profits -
if on statmeent it included the existing 35% - you would be looking at - taking 70% as mid range for primary - just under 4K - but if your £3138 didn't include the old 35% capital distribution - more like £5400. In both cases - subject to any potential additional payment for secondary.
(Again I worry that if your AVC statement doesn't make explicit reference to the existing capital distribution - your funds may lie elsewhere - e.g. equities funds etc - so not uplifted ).

The secondary is zero / less than 5% for majority of members - see table at 28.2 in booklet part B for old uplift distribution range - some scheme docs still available on Utmost site - but supplementaries suggested these tabled figures would be out of date - but does get to over 25% for 6% of members
https://www.utmost.co.uk/about-us/history-and-facts/information-about-equitable-life-scheme-and-transfer/

I suspect in about just another week or so - there were references in suplemetary reports of calcs being done and final balance transfers then validated / confirmed to individual accounts in the weeks around 14th / 20th jan - you / we may well be able to get our actual figures.

But I suspect EL might be busy / are going to be swamped soon with transfer and/or investment choice forms - so plan to wait for my letter as at least for some if not all Utmost are supposed to be posting out letters to members later this month with actual final figures.
Does anyone here know for sure if this will or will not include group schemes ? ( Worried their is a risk the adminstrators get in the way / could delay things for their members ? )

If I were you I would try and get through to Utmost at the old EL service centre - or your AVC admin company if they cannot help - and try to get more specific info for your policy.

pensionpawn

Scot_39 wrote: »

Joey - as per pafpcg response the answer is not 100% obvious - but hopefully you may be able to get the exact figure soon enough.
I didn't follow the AVC group scheme info in packs too closely - as my AVCs were merged into my private policy years back - but press articles were quoting uplifts - at least primary for all members - group and otherwise.
The real problem I suspect given problems other report above ( having heard nothing or failed to get answeres from their schemes ) for some in your position will be the delays added by your AVC scheme administrators. ( I just got a statement from one such outfit for one of my old AVC schemes - letter dated Jun - covering my policy value in Apr - arrived more than 6 months later - just after xmas - quite poor service to my mind.)

I - and I suspect many others - had a mix of with-profits and unit-linked at EL - from when EL was my main private and then for a while in a group AVC scheme at equitable - there is no uplift at all on the unit linked funds - these effectively just transfer to Utmost as admin - staying with existing underlying fund managers ( AIS etc )

The "with profits" uplift - is for most members a combination of a fixed /common to all primary uplift and a more tailored secondary - applied only to members funds in the EL "with profits" scheme. Utmost even with Jan updates still only quote a range - from 65-75% - for primary - and no new details for secondaries - but I suspect now must surely know the initial figures for final actuarial / accounts approval - as they should have started processing data last week - based on Dec 31st values. The last set of supplementaries issued Q3 / Q4 by EL were speculating at 72% primary of Dec value - which is applied to the base policy value - excluding any impact of recent contributions over last 2 years. Some members also get the additional - potentionally non-trivial - some say mainly age related - secondary uplift.

Anyway - to my recollection EL historically in places like annual statements - quote policy values including the existing 35% capital distribution (like on my last statement - policy value £xxxxxx including a capital distribution of £yyyyy ( where yyyyy=35% of your base policy value = (xxxxxx-yyyyy) or (xxxxxx/1.35) etc ).

My August personal illustatration - quotes the underlying base value ( I had to work it out from the annual statements - not explicitly quoted there by EL ) without the 35% distribution - and was done with a primary of 68% - and a secondary uplift in the teens - so over 80% combined uplift.

I am a little worried that you appear to have had no information from EL or the AVC scheme administrators - but from others reporting poor informaton could just be that - but EL have several different schemes and investment paths - not all are impacted the same - not sure this lack of information excludes you from the scheme uplift - but is a concern.

However if your £3138 is impacted by the uplift - e.g. was purely in with profits -
if on statmeent it included the existing 35% - you would be looking at - taking 70% as mid range for primary - just under 4K - but if your £3138 didn't include the old 35% capital distribution - more like £5400. In both cases - subject to any potential additional payment for secondary.
(Again I worry that if your AVC statement doesn't make explicit reference to with profits or the exsiting capital distribution - your funds may lie elsewhere - e.g. equities funds etc - so not uplifted ).

The secondary is zero / less than 5% for majority of members - see table at 28.2 in booklet part B for old distribution range - some scheme docs still available on Utmost site - but supplementaries suggested these tables figuers would be out of date
https://www.utmost.co.uk/about-us/history-and-facts/information-about-equitable-life-scheme-and-transfer/

I suspect in about just another week or so - there were references in suplemetary reports of calcs being done and final balance transfers then validated / confirmed to individual accounts in the weeks around 14th to 20th jan - you / we will be able to get our actual figures.

But I suspect EL might be busy / are going to be swamped soon with transfer and/or investment choice forms - so plan to wait for my letter as at least for some Utmost are supposed to be posting out letters to members later this month with actual final figures.

Does anyone here know for sure if this will or will not include group schemes ? ( Worried their is a risk the adminstrators get in the way / could delay things for their members ? )


If I were you I would try and get through to Utmost at the old EL service centre - or your AVC admin company - and try to get more specific info for your policy.

My statement says 'investments in Equitable with profits' is x (split protected and non-protected rights) and my transfer value is 90.8% of x. It also says that 'value of guaranteed benefits' is 96.6% of x. It also states that 'the Equitable with profits transfer value includes an amount (23.5% of x) which represents the share of capital that has been allocated to your benefit and is payable when the benefits is taken. This amount is not guaranteed and can go down as well as up'.

I consider myself reasonably competent with finances and pensions however Equitable Life statements baffle me. I have no idea what value the uplift will be applied to!

Joey_Soap

Thanks all. The AVC I have is with profits at EL. Unfortunately, it is a group AVC administered by Mercers. I am not joking when I say that nobody I have spoken to there seems to even know anything is happening with EL. This amazes me since Mercers are a major pension scheme administrator and I simply cannot be the only person asking questions. I can confirm that I have had no communication from anywhere about this Utmost transfer. I am going to give it a few more weeks and then make an official complaint to Mercers for gross incompetence.


Cheers


JS.