Non responsive / missing pension trustee/s

dunstonh

The trustee holds a 75% shareholding in an accountancy practice, so presumably will not be comfortable with Ombudsmen asking lots of questions.

Neither the FOS or the POS have any impact or influence on accountants.

Sandtree

Have you contacted the Pensions Advisory Service?

What are the companies involved?

I've done a little work on annuities with some long standing insurance companies and to be honest because of the durations involved its a nightmare... a pension scheme will often do a buy-in (insurance held by the scheme itself) and as it winds up it moves to a buy-out at which point the insurer steps in to make payments. There are other routes though, some buy-ins have the insurer pay the pensioner directly and after doing this for 30+ years knowledge of what's happened to the trustees is often lost

lohr500

@Sandtree We haven't contacted the Pensions Advisory Service yet. Would it complicate matters to start a discussion with them as we have already raised a complaint with the FOS (Accepting that FOS may come back to us and tell us to raise the complaint with the POS)?
I would prefer not to name the companies at this stage as I don't want to put anything in the public domain that may prejudice the ongoing complaint.

Sandtree

No, legal action stops the FOS but not making other enquiries.

FOS have a massive backlog, some are talking 12 months plus, so unless your happy waiting that long and being at a standing start if they say its outside of their scope then I'd look at all appropriate avenues

lohr500

Quick update : Have chatted with the Pension Advisory Service. They have advised that we should complain to the Pension Ombudsman Service, so a complaint with supportive documentation has now been submitted.

TVAS

You are asking the wrong people at the insurance company as they are the people at the bottom who cannot make decisions. You need to raise it with a Senior person as they CAN make decision. You may have to sign an indemnity however as your benefits are EARMARKED to you i.e. you have an individual fund allocation you cannot be given benefits belonging to another member. 
Go to Google email CEO of x provider and send them an email explaining the problem and that you have tried speaking to the staff and you keep going round in circles.

Albermarle

TVAS said:

You are asking the wrong people at the insurance company as they are the people at the bottom who cannot make decisions. You need to raise it with a Senior person as they CAN make decision. You may have to sign an indemnity however as your benefits are EARMARKED to you i.e. you have an individual fund allocation you cannot be given benefits belonging to another member. 
Go to Google email CEO of x provider and send them an email explaining the problem and that you have tried speaking to the staff and you keep going round in circles.

As I said earlier this is how I eventually got my trustee missing problem with Scottish Widows sorted . I pushed the complaint up the food chain and just said repeatedly that it was irrational /unfair that my pension was locked away because a trustee could not be located . Eventually the penny dropped.

Marcon

lohr500 said:

Quick update : Have chatted with the Pension Advisory Service. They have advised that we should complain to the Pension Ombudsman Service, so a complaint with supportive documentation has now been submitted.

The PO has the power to make a direction ordering the insurer to do something, so that'll get the problem sorted without any need for more hair-tearing on your part! It won't be instant, but at least now you're on the right path.

lohr500

I am hoping so.
Also, as per TVAS suggestion I have sent a polite email to the CEO asking him to look into the issue. But looking at the Trustpilot reviews for the company in question, I am not hopeful of a result of their own making. I think it will need the PO to intervene. We shall see. Just a good job this isn't our only pension fund and that we don't need it to stay solvent.

lohr500

A quick update as I find it frustrating when people start a topic and then never return to say what the outcome was.
The complaint has been acknowledged by the Pensions Ombudsman but due to work load they are saying it could take up to 7 months to review!
My email to the CEO was passed to someone in his "customer service" team and they have replied saying they have done some more investigating and have now contacted the liquidators of the last company they have on record who had an interest in the scheme. Apparently, in the absence of any trustees, if the liquidators are prepared to sign the discharge document then this is acceptable. And so we wait to see if they will sign the paperwork. If not, then they are saying they will refer the issue to the Pensions Regulator and ask the Regulator to appoint a trustee.
So it would seem as though things are moving slowly, but we are not hopeful of a swift conclusion.