DB Pension PCLS Late may incur losses

Pat38493

DRS1 said:

 I could also be asking if I can claim compensation for the stress caused by waiting for news about it but I doubt that is going to fly.

Sometimes that is the only thing you might get from a complaint (either under IDRP or to the Ombudsman).  It is called distress and inconvenience.

It is interesting to see that your timetable might not be as urgent as it seemed.  I was going to mention that the IDRP could take months to generate a result which may not help you if you needed things sorted in the next two months.

It's not really urgent in the sense that I am not going to go bankrupt, but, as stated in the OP, there may be as short period of time when I am forced to borrow monty until the PCLS comes through, IF my house sale doesn't go through.

It's really contingency planning, but this doesn't really change the point that most people would be shocked to realise that DB pension administrators often don't pay out on time, even when given months of notice to do so (I am not the only one to have seen this issue as there have been many other threads about it on these boards).

DRS1

Selling your house is pretty stressful on its own without this added complication.  Good luck with both.

Marcon

DRS1 said:

 I could also be asking if I can claim compensation for the stress caused by waiting for news about it but I doubt that is going to fly.

Sometimes that is the only thing you might get from a complaint (either under IDRP or to the Ombudsman).  It is called distress and inconvenience.

It is interesting to see that your timetable might not be as urgent as it seemed.  I was going to mention that the IDRP could take months to generate a result which may not help you if you needed things sorted in the next two months.

Where a case is complicated it can indeed take months, but in simple cases it often acts as a very effective accelerant to getting things sorted. Having an ongoing IDRP is extremely bad news, and few trustees/administrators will let it drag on needlessly. In an extreme case it could delay a  buy out, so getting it sorted is going to be a high priority if OP goes that route.

Pat38493

DRS1 said:

Selling your house is pretty stressful on its own without this added complication.  Good luck with both.

Tell me about it.  Not only that, we are also buying a caravan at the same time so we have to deal with equiping and pitching it and so on - last week we went on a caravan towing course!

DRS1

Pat38493 said:

DRS1 said:

Selling your house is pretty stressful on its own without this added complication.  Good luck with both.

Tell me about it.  Not only that, we are also buying a caravan at the same time so we have to deal with equiping and pitching it and so on - last week we went on a caravan towing course!

I am sure that took your mind off things - did you spend much time reversing into a small parking space?

DRS1

Marcon said:

DRS1 said:

 I could also be asking if I can claim compensation for the stress caused by waiting for news about it but I doubt that is going to fly.

Sometimes that is the only thing you might get from a complaint (either under IDRP or to the Ombudsman).  It is called distress and inconvenience.

It is interesting to see that your timetable might not be as urgent as it seemed.  I was going to mention that the IDRP could take months to generate a result which may not help you if you needed things sorted in the next two months.

Where a case is complicated it can indeed take months, but in simple cases it often acts as a very effective accelerant to getting things sorted. Having an ongoing IDRP is extremely bad news, and few trustees/administrators will let it drag on needlessly. In an extreme case it could delay a  buy out, so getting it sorted is going to be a high priority if OP goes that route.

Interesting.  Let's say the OP does go that route (since both you and I agree he should).  Me being the pessimist will say that the scheme will take however long is allowed by the IDRP to give a first stage response (30 days?) and if the problem with the insurers has not been sorted then that will be an unsatisfactory response saying We cannot respond in full at this time because blah blah.  We will get back to you in another 30 days with more news.
Of course the optimist would say that the response will come after the lump sum has been paid and the pension set up for payment and will say Everything is sorted now.  We offer you £100 for any inconvenience caused.  All within the first 30 days?  Fingers crossed. 

Pat38493

DRS1 said:

Pat38493 said:

DRS1 said:

Selling your house is pretty stressful on its own without this added complication.  Good luck with both.

Tell me about it.  Not only that, we are also buying a caravan at the same time so we have to deal with equiping and pitching it and so on - last week we went on a caravan towing course!

I am sure that took your mind off things - did you spend much time reversing into a small parking space?

Yes indeed - reversing a caravan is more difficult even than trying to get clear answers from a DB pension administrator (or maybe not).

Also unfortunately we can't really delay the caravan purchase for cash flow purposes because we already signed the contract, paid a deposit and so on months ago, and we also already paid a 50% deposit on a seasonal pitch, so the losses from cancelling the purchase would be much higher than just taking out a loan for a while.

Further - my wife would kill me as she is excited about getting the caravan.

As mentioned above, it's not really clear why a large insurer like Aviva would not have clear deadlines and SLA in place that they have to process the "claim" within x days, because if it's a buy in, it should be a clearly defined black and white process.  Still Shimrod seemed to say that these insurers can still take a long time to do anything even though it's a fairly standard process.

DRS1

I am beginning to sympathise with the scheme administrators.  The insurer I was chasing up last summer was Aviva.  Of course some bits of Aviva are better than others.  Maybe I got the good bit.

Pat38493

Marcon said:

DRS1 said:

 I could also be asking if I can claim compensation for the stress caused by waiting for news about it but I doubt that is going to fly.

Sometimes that is the only thing you might get from a complaint (either under IDRP or to the Ombudsman).  It is called distress and inconvenience.

It is interesting to see that your timetable might not be as urgent as it seemed.  I was going to mention that the IDRP could take months to generate a result which may not help you if you needed things sorted in the next two months.

Where a case is complicated it can indeed take months, but in simple cases it often acts as a very effective accelerant to getting things sorted. Having an ongoing IDRP is extremely bad news, and few trustees/administrators will let it drag on needlessly. In an extreme case it could delay a  buy out, so getting it sorted is going to be a high priority if OP goes that route.

OK so I wrote to Aptia / Mercer asking for a copy of the IDRP.  They have replied without including the IDRP and just replied with the same stock information they sent me the last few times that they are chasing Aviva and blah blah blah.

How can I actually force them to provide the IDRP?

DRS1

Does the scheme have some sort of web portal where you may be able to log in and find useful information and documents - including perhaps the IDRP?