Experience with L&G Worksave Pension Trust (and Master trust) products

gm0

Arcane questions but I live in hope.  Somebody may have one of these.

My deferred membership of an employer DC scheme is moving to L&G for admin in August.  Cut off for investment changes or exit is imminent.   Future product details are sketchy.  But Work Save seems the most likely L&G offering and quite possibly Work Save Pension Master Trust as the thing you move to as a member if you take drawdown.

Does anyone have these L&G Work Save product(s) with drawdown support where their employer scheme has already moved in ?

1) If you moved in did your existing fund range + selection and charges remain the same or was the new set "generic" L&G and more/less costly.
2) Did the funds/costs portfolio change when you moved from accumulation to drawdown
3) Is the Worksave Pension Master Trust in effect - a restricted range "SIPP" (85k protection) or is it still an insured (i.e. a full protection product. (More desirable all else being equal).

I have formally asked my existing admin outfit - TPW questions on these topics.  I got an ask L&G later post migration and launch non-response.
Trustees suggested review investments and transfer options before migration cut off but have not provided the product or cost information to do so meaningfully.  It wouldn't matter for 99% of members in long term accumulation.  Just the tiny group implementing pension de-accumulation this tax year.

I tried a schemes of this type moving to you question with L&G earlier this year but it is hard to get financial institutions to talk to you or provide scheme specific info when you are not yet a customer and the scheme isn't launched.  

https://www.legalandgeneral.com/adviser/workplace-benefits/workplace-pensions/products/worksave-pension-mastertrust/

Any experience or thoughts ?

dunstonh

1) If you moved in did your existing fund range + selection and charges remain the same or was the new set "generic" L&G and more/less costly.

L&G only offer funds available via them. If you are in insured funds of a different provider then L&G cannot offer those.

2) Did the funds/costs portfolio change when you moved from accumulation to drawdown

It is normal for people to adjust their portfolio at drawdown.     Risk reduction is common.  And either segmenting their portfolio to match investment terms and future withdrawals or holding a greater amount in cash to cover short term volailtity.

These basic pathway options are never going to be best. Never going to be worst.  They basic lazy options for those that really dont want to put any work in. 

3) Is the Worksave Pension Master Trust in effect - a restricted range "SIPP" (85k protection) or is it still an insured (i.e. a full protection product. (More desirable all else being equal).

A Master Trust pension will not be a SIPP.  It will be a master trust pension.

gm0

Thank you for the response. 

Do "master trust pensions" enjoy fully insured protection or 85k ? 

This may be obvious "assumed knowledge" but I don't have it.  I am unclear on the specific point.  I agree the name makes it clear that it is a "master trust" but I don't know the significance of that.  L&G documents for sample schemes on the web site were not helpful on this point.  Our documents are not available (yet).

Albermarle

From a different angle , I understood that L& G strategy was to gradually pull out of offering pension products , so seems a bit strange they are taking on new business?
They are selling  their pension products to Reassure, although there have been delays .
https://www.legalandgeneral.com/policytransfer/
Reassure themselves are being sold to Phoenix
https://www.reassure.co.uk/article/swiss-re-agrees-to-the-sale-of-reassure-to-phoenix-group-holdings/

dunstonh

Do "master trust pensions" enjoy fully insured protection or 85k ? 

I have seen them using insured funds and I have seen them without.   So, it would need looking at on an individual basis.

From a different angle , I understood that L& G strategy was to gradually pull out of offering pension products , so seems a bit strange they are taking on new business?

L&G are still active in commercial business (i.e. company schemes).  Is it the individual market that they pulled out of (and the individual and legacy unwanted book that is being sold).   

gm0

Abermarle - I don't pretend to understand their strategy as I have no special insight. Never worked at L&G.

But it looks like they sold off an older, complicated legacy business not profitable enough to justify rework - with a range of books organic or acquired - looking to clean out costbase and setup a simpler new "employer scheme admin" offer without all the historic complexity.  Let's be generous and say decision one to exit and decision two (later) to start a new one were separate.

If you wanted to modernise and be in the modern digital enabled pension freedoms game then setting up "greenfield" new is WAY easier than having to deal with every last crevice and exception of every product you ever sold or rebranded with your name on and all the data and IT variation and cruft that built up on that over decades. 

So dump them off as static closed books to Reassure.  TUPE off or make redundant the expensive middle aged existing staff with historic product knowledge.  Start again clean. Modernise, digital, low cost.  Recruit mostly new targeting young and cheap. 
Consistent up to date legals. Don't let the sales force customise the offer to employers. 

Not much if anything to "convert" into the new solution. No dealing with all the old schemes and members left unmodernised in closed book world.  Off they go under new separate branding so you are not left supporting certain features and not supporting them at the same time.  From a business perspective it's cynical but it's not stupid. 

For a scheme member being sold off it's clearly unwelcome unless the Phoenix/Reassure operation turns out to be better at managing old scheme specifics side by side in bulk.  It's possible (if a bit unlikely) in a more aggressively cost managed environment.

I spent a lot of my professional career having the "why is this project so expensive ? / which historic product complexity (now unprofitable and not sold) are you prepared to desupport and remove before we design new IT to support it all?" discussion again and again. 

It's like chocolates - "just one more" small new feature" gets added and you carry it on your waistline forever. Or a merger brings in a whole crate of quality street and roses but you get the point.  Somebody has gone for liposuction. Won't turn them into a fintech startup.  In context might work and might not. Largely depends on quality of execution on standing up the new operations and their success in selling it and getting to volume.

gm0

dunstonh - Thank you again.  Alice bumps her head on another root down the rabbit hole.
Worst of all worlds - "It depends" could be either and may in fact depend upon the fund you pick within the wrapper?
Surely nobody mixes uninsured and insured in the same scheme. (Ignoring the "cash" where is it held stuff for the moment). 
Fund key investor info reports are not super explicit about this so it looks like an accident waiting to happen in self-service fund selection if that's possible to switch equity fund and with it your protection status changes. 

Or you may have meant - master trusts exist in both forms - group SIPPs 85k and "insured" versions so it is not possible to tell without the specific scheme documents for this trust which looks a bit less mad.

dunstonh

Surely nobody mixes uninsured and insured in the same scheme. (Ignoring the "cash" where is it held stuff for the moment). 

In most cases no.  Although funnily enough, it is possible.  Both SW and Aviva allow it on their pensions.  But for a master trust workplace scheme you would expect one or the other.

gm0

>Although funnily enough, it is possible
Of course it is. Let's stop there before the endless screaming begins.

Thank you for confirming my short term within tax year mess is real and not resolvable without co-operation from L&G now that my existing provider has been unable to address the questions.