Yet another Pension Administrator Fiasco

xylophone

I was reading through this thread last night.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6498679/mycsp/p1

This morning I saw this

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-12973717/Furious-BAE-pensioners-tax-code-chaos-bungled-handover-new-administrator.html

Inexcusable?

Pat38493

After seeing quite a few threads like this, I am seriously thinking of putting my DB pension into payment before I retire and only stop working once I’ve seen some money coming through.

The tax code issue is also ridiculous but I would be curious as to how a single month of double payments would result in a £12000 tax demand 6 months later (unless they double reported PCLS amounts).  Either way I’m continuously astonished that there isn’t some kind of regulator overseeing this stuff - imagine if this was happening with your bank or work payroll - they would be in big trouble I think.

dunstonh

After seeing quite a few threads like this, I am seriously thinking of putting my DB pension into payment before I retire and only stop working once I’ve seen some money coming through.

Usually you cannot if you are retiring from the linked employer as they wont start the pension until you are off the payroll.
Plus, remember that articles like that are not the norm.  The vast majority have no problems.  However, the key is to inform the administrator early and get forms completed in advance.

Pat38493

dunstonh said:

After seeing quite a few threads like this, I am seriously thinking of putting my DB pension into payment before I retire and only stop working once I’ve seen some money coming through.

Usually you cannot if you are retiring from the linked employer as they wont start the pension until you are off the payroll.
Plus, remember that articles like that are not the norm.  The vast majority have no problems.  However, the key is to inform the administrator early and get forms completed in advance.

It's a deferred DB pension - the employer pension today is DC.

Albermarle

dunstonh said:

After seeing quite a few threads like this, I am seriously thinking of putting my DB pension into payment before I retire and only stop working once I’ve seen some money coming through.

Usually you cannot if you are retiring from the linked employer as they wont start the pension until you are off the payroll.
Plus, remember that articles like that are not the norm.  The vast majority have no problems.  However, the key is to inform the administrator early and get forms completed in advance.

I started my process with Mercer in April,  before leaving employment mid July( it was a scheme from a previous employer).
After no response and a complaint via the Trustees, some forms arrived. Filled and sent off the same day, After no response and another complaint, my official quotation arrived at end of June with a starting date of mid August. Again everything filled in, signed and sent off the same day. After no response and now Head Trustee bending the ear of a senior manager at Mercer, I was assured my first payment would be now mid Sept and after that paid in advance each month.
No payment arrived, more complaining, and then informed payments would actually be in arrears. Eventually got the first payment end of October including previous missed payment. So nearly 7 months.....

hugheskevi

Albermarle said:

dunstonh said:

After seeing quite a few threads like this, I am seriously thinking of putting my DB pension into payment before I retire and only stop working once I’ve seen some money coming through.

Usually you cannot if you are retiring from the linked employer as they wont start the pension until you are off the payroll.
Plus, remember that articles like that are not the norm.  The vast majority have no problems.  However, the key is to inform the administrator early and get forms completed in advance.

I started my process with Mercer in April,  before leaving employment mid July( it was a scheme from a previous employer).
After no response and a complaint via the Trustees, some forms arrived. Filled and sent off the same day, After no response and another complaint, my official quotation arrived at end of June with a starting date of mid August. Again everything filled in, signed and sent off the same day. After no response and now Head Trustee bending the ear of a senior manager at Mercer, I was assured my first payment would be now mid Sept and after that paid in advance each month.
No payment arrived, more complaining, and then informed payments would actually be in arrears. Eventually got the first payment end of October including previous missed payment. So nearly 7 months.....

I'd agree that doing everything in plenty of time and responding promptly is not sufficient to guarantee pension will be paid when due. It would be reckless to assume the pension will be paid on time and not have other resources to cover late payment - at least 3 months I'd say.

You can improve the chances by always monitoring and cross-referencing payslips, P60s, Annual Benefit Statements, Pension Saving Statements, total reward statements, deferred award statements, etc, and chasing down every single error you find. That will help to keep the record clean of errors which will create delays when the award is put into payment.

Personally, I don't trust pension administrators / payroll operation one inch, and calculate my own DB pension independently in my spreadsheets. Although for most members, it will be quite hard to identify anything beyond blatant errors - eg, I've had pension inputs slightly miscalculated, which most members wouldn't be able to identify. Still, at various times I've been put into the wrong scheme, had wrong member contributions deducted, had incorrect benefit amounts on statements, incorrect start date shown, etc, all of which most members could identify with careful checking. Fixing these promptly would significantly reduce the time to make the pension award when claimed.

Pat38493

hugheskevi said:

Albermarle said:

dunstonh said:

After seeing quite a few threads like this, I am seriously thinking of putting my DB pension into payment before I retire and only stop working once I’ve seen some money coming through.

Usually you cannot if you are retiring from the linked employer as they wont start the pension until you are off the payroll.
Plus, remember that articles like that are not the norm.  The vast majority have no problems.  However, the key is to inform the administrator early and get forms completed in advance.

I started my process with Mercer in April,  before leaving employment mid July( it was a scheme from a previous employer).
After no response and a complaint via the Trustees, some forms arrived. Filled and sent off the same day, After no response and another complaint, my official quotation arrived at end of June with a starting date of mid August. Again everything filled in, signed and sent off the same day. After no response and now Head Trustee bending the ear of a senior manager at Mercer, I was assured my first payment would be now mid Sept and after that paid in advance each month.
No payment arrived, more complaining, and then informed payments would actually be in arrears. Eventually got the first payment end of October including previous missed payment. So nearly 7 months.....

I'd agree that doing everything in plenty of time and responding promptly is not sufficient to guarantee pension will be paid when due. It would be reckless to assume the pension will be paid on time and not have other resources to cover late payment - at least 3 months I'd say.

You can improve the chances by always monitoring and cross-referencing payslips, P60s, Annual Benefit Statements, Pension Saving Statements, total reward statements, deferred award statements, etc, and chasing down every single error you find. That will help to keep the record clean of errors which will create delays when the award is put into payment.

Personally, I don't trust pension administrators / payroll operation one inch, and calculate my own DB pension independently in my spreadsheets. Although for most members, it will be quite hard to identify anything beyond blatant errors - eg, I've had pension inputs slightly miscalculated, which most members wouldn't be able to identify. Still, at various times I've been put into the wrong scheme, had wrong member contributions deducted, had incorrect benefit amounts on statements, incorrect start date shown, etc, all of which most members could identify with careful checking. Fixing these promptly would significantly reduce the time to make the pension award when claimed.

I have tried to do this as well, but there is so much complexity around it that it's a bit of a minefield - I received an official quote from Mercer a few months back that was not the same as my calculation but it was withing a few hundred per year (their's was less surprise surprise).

What I also found is that Mercer have not responded to my additional request for copies of the rules / factsheets around how they do the calculations as the one they have sent me in the past is clearly out of date (for example it says GMP was not equalized when I know for sure that it was, and the commutation factors in the fact sheet doesn't match with their offer).

Albermarle

To say one positive thing about Mercer, when eventually it did go into payment, I had a query with their payroll dept and somebody actually phoned me back ! 
Also since then I have been paid on time every month for the last couple of years, with no errors. P60's and payslips ( only when something changes)  have arrived promptly.
So the payroll side seems OK.

xylophone

 and chasing down every single error you find. 

Well..... even if you do....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6499375/nhs-pension-complaint

Tommyjw

Quite an famous current story within the DB world for those of us with colleagues who know people who know someone (etc etc) who works at Mercer or at BAE itself.

Worth saying in this instance the fault is 100% on equiniti, the old provider, not mercer.

Overall the DB admin world is an extremely boring part of the Pensions world and companies put as little money as possible into investing into that area ( people, tech, etc) compared to the actuarial, investment managers, etc side of pensions. Situations like this show what that has resulted in.

hugheskevi

Tommyjw said:

Worth saying in this instance the fault is 100% on equiniti, the old provider, not mercer.

Nicely tying the two articles @xylophone quoted in his original post together - Equiniti owns 75% of MyCSP (staff own the other 25%, reflecting its mutual origins)