Pension Being Withheld

Ebony72

I don't know if anyone can help me.
Last year my husband hit 65, he works full time and through his employer had two pensions. One with Clerical Medical which in 2009 was stopped but held in trust (as far as we know) and then the pension went to Aegon.
In June 2025 we saw a financial advisor who got the Aegon pension sorted, done and dusted within 3 months. My husband notified his boss that he was wanting his Clerical Medical one sorted as his boss is the only one who deals with it within the company. We are now at 29 January and my husband still has NOTHING from Clerical Medical.
His boss keeps making excuses (I gave you the wrong form to sign) or when we've sent him an email (he works from home a lot) he replies with "I acknowledge receipt of your email" but that's all.
My husband has decided to retire at the end of next month. He told his boss in January he was going to retire at the end of Feb rather than wait until October. But still nothing, from either his boss or Clerical Medical.

My husband isn't eligible for his state pension until October so we are relying on the Clerical Medical one to live on, along with the Aegon one. We've rung Clerical Medical and they've told us they have no record of it. It was a group pension, we have the group number and my husbands member number, but we have nothing else.
We have no idea what else we can do. Can anyone advise us please? Do we go back to the financial advisor? A solicitor? I feel like I'm banging my head on a wall and no one is listening.

JoeCrystal

That is worrying. Do you have any official annual statements or any paperworks directly from Clerical Medical?

Ebony72

We had statements up until it was shut down in 2009. His boss wanted everyone to transfer their Pensions to Aegon but my husband, as were a lot of others advised to hold the Clerical Medical one, until they retired.
But we have no paperwork, no statements or anything from Clerical Medical since 2009.

sheramber

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81859717#Comment_81859717

Have ‘the others’ had any correspondence/ pension from Clerical Medical?

Marcon

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6652728/pension-being-withheld

The priority is to sort out whether this was some sort of occupational scheme or a group personal pension. The important difference is that if it's the former, it will have been a trust-based scheme and possibly his employer is the last trustee standing and is completely out of his depth (hence the prevarication). If it's the latter, then it's one for Clerical Medical to sort out.

Go back to your financial adviser and they should be able to help.

Marcon

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81859717#Comment_81859717

Go to Companies House website https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company and look up the name of your husband's employing company, then check the accounts for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010 (all downloadable free). They will give details of the type(s) of pension provision offered by the company - it'll be in the 'Notes to the Accounts'.

There are some clues in your post that this was some sort of defined benefit pension (DB) scheme:

• the employer's enthusiasm for people to transfer to the Aegon arrangement (which I'm willing to wager is a defined contribution pension scheme)
• the advice to employees to stay put in the Clerical Medical scheme until they retired
• the lack of any further statements. DB schemes in the private sector rarely issue annual benefit statements once a member is no longer actively building up benefits in the scheme. If this is a small scheme (fewer than 100 members) there is no requirement to issue something called a Summary Funding Statement, which larger DB schemes are required to send to all members more or less annually, so the lack of communication wouldn't be a surprise.

If it's a DB scheme in the private sector, it is going to be a trust-based arrangement. Maybe time for your husband to pick up a phone and have a chat with his boss on a collaborative basis? The alternative is that this could stay in the boss's 'too difficult' pile for an indefinite period…

Ebony72

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81859749#Comment_81859749

No they didn’t

Ebony72

I’m looking at the Financial Statements from 2008 and it says it’s a defined contribution pension scheme. It then says

“The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the company, being invested with insurance companies”

The company came very close to going bankrupt last year, only being saved by another company buying into them. When the advisor sorted out the Aegon pension it came to light that the boss hadn’t made any payments for two months. The boss paid it back to my husband in his wages, but who knows how long it would have gone on for.

Marcon

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860050#Comment_81860050

I'd definitely go back to your IFA for some help.

QrizB

Do you still have any of the correspondence from 2009, when the Clerical Medical scheme closed(?) that spells out exactly what would happen to your husband's pension?

Noting that you've been planning to use this pension to meet living expenses for the next 9-10 months, do you have a fallback plan in case it takes longer than that to sort out? Savings you can use instead, for example, or family that can top you up, or 0% credit cards that can carry the load?

dunstonh

 My husband notified his boss that he was wanting his Clerical Medical one sorted as his boss is the only one who deals with it within the company. We are now at 29 January and my husband still has NOTHING from Clerical Medical.

Why would his boss need to be involved with his clerical Medical pension? - You wouldn't normally involve the employer with a group scheme. Possibly with COMPs/CIMPs (money purchase occupational pensions) you would.

We had statements up until it was shut down in 2009. His boss wanted everyone to transfer their Pensions to Aegon but my husband, as were a lot of others advised to hold the Clerical Medical one, until they retired.

But we have no paperwork, no statements or anything from Clerical Medical since 2009.

Check with Aegon to see if there was a transfer value paid to it at any point?

Multiple times over the years people have given me old paperwork and not realised that the pension was transferred to another at some point. Some quite vehemently say they never transferred it, and I have obtained the transfer amounts and dates with the respective schemes to prove it. So, if the adviser is an IFA, they should be able to do similar checks.

. We've rung Clerical Medical and they've told us they have no record of it. 

That sounds strange as CM don't archive data that short a period of time ago. If you have statements from pre 2009, then supplying CM with a copy and asking them to check again would be a good idea. Group schemes often have multiple numbers (scheme, number, member number and policy number). At worst, if it no longer exists, CM should be able to say what happened to it.

Do we go back to the financial advisor?

That would be logical and it seems strange that it wasn't dealt with by the adviser initially.

A solicitor?

That would not be logical at this stage. Only if you find out the employer has committed fraud, do you then want to consider legal actions.