WillisTowerWatson slow admin

longwalks1

After some advice here please. Our employer pension scheme is held with WillisTowerWatson, and my understanding is it is just a holding company, not a pension provider? (terminology may be way off)

Ive heard several stories of ex-employees who've retired, and its taken them 6 or more months to access their pension after leaving, is this down to the time taken to transfer from WTW to an actual pension provider, such as AJ Bell?

And if someone was planning to retire in, for example, July 2027, would it be advisable to transfer 90% of the funds from WTW to a new provider while still in employment, maybe 6 months before their last day?

Marcon

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6664953/willistowerwatson-slow-admin

Don't believe all you hear. People with problems are far more likely to pipe up than those who are fine.

WTW provide third party administration services to occupational pension schemes, especially defined benefit arrangements. They also have a master trust called LifeSight, which is a defined contribution scheme.

What sort of scheme are you in?

longwalks1

Sorry, should of said, those who encountered issues and myself were/are all in the DC scheme

Albermarle

Don't believe all you hear. People with problems are far more likely to pipe up than those who are fine.

True but also fair to say, that WTW are regularly mentioned in a negative light on this forum, along with other large pension administrators, like Mercer/Aptia etc.

Ive heard several stories of ex-employees who've retired, and its taken them 6 or more months to access their pension after leaving, is this down to the time taken to transfer from WTW to an actual pension provider, such as AJ Bell?

I think you need to find out some more detail. Are these retired ex employees trying to begin drawdown, or buy an annuity, or wanting to transfer the pension pot out ?

And if someone was planning to retire in, for example, July 2027, would it be advisable to transfer 90% of the funds from WTW to a new provider while still in employment, maybe 6 months before their last day?

That would depend on a number of things. Firstly many people retire and do not start taking their pension, or start taking it before they retire. Also it might not be possible to do a part transfer.

However on balance a transfer to a probably easier to deal with provider at some point, could be a good solution.

eastcorkram

WTW were the admin for a DB scheme I was in during the 1980s.

That started paying when I turned 65 in 2024. The lump sum, and the first pension payment, happened exactly as it was supposed to.

dunstonh

After some advice here please. Our employer pension scheme is held with WillisTowerWatson, and my understanding is it is just a holding company, not a pension provider? (terminology may be way off)

They are a pension administrator. They are not a product provider but they do have their own branded workplace scheme as well. So, the relationship can vary depending on the scheme.

Ive heard several stories of ex-employees who've retired, and its taken them 6 or more months to access their pension after leaving, is this down to the time taken to transfer from WTW to an actual pension provider, such as AJ Bell?

Yes, it is not uncommon for it to take circa 6 months. However, that is typical of most of the professional administrators. The most common issue is that the professional administrators tend to apply the red/amber/green rules explicitly and operate with little or no discretion. So, if you are transferring to a SIPP, even with a well known brand, it will usually trigger the amber warnings. And if you use Dublin or Luxembourg-domiciled investments, it will trigger red warnings and they will typically send you through the whole process. If you transfer to a mainstream insured pension, they tend to be much quicker.

Sorry, should of said, those who encountered issues and myself were/are all in the DC scheme

Which DC scheme? Their own master trust scheme or one that they administer?

WillowLeaf

I have two DB pensions from separate companies, both use WTW.

The service I have received when asking about one company is very good. The other I had to make a complaint about due to not being able to get a response, then getting only have my queries answered. 🤷‍♂️

Brie

I had 3 work pension schemes being administered by WTW. One was a DB scheme which was simple and handled very quickly.

The second was a standard DC scheme and I had months of problems getting them to send me the info as they kept wanting to send everything by email (efficient for some) but I was never able to open any of the attachments and they didn't understand and took forever to eventually send things through. Once they had all the paperwork the system worked well.

The third I'm still trying to sort (not WTW's fault) and I want to buy an annuity. WTW have said that doing this may take several months once all the paperwork has been sorted. I've yet to receive any quotes but that is not WTW's fault.

The 3 different experiences are based on the fact that each scheme is dealt with by a separate team, working with different scheme rules and different scheme trustees. Each team likely has a multitude of schemes for which they are responsible so there's no way anyone is going to be an expert on every scheme with which they administer.

Consider yourself lucky though - you could be dealing with Capita!!

green.lander_2

i have experienced slow service

javixeneize

same here. Started the process in early March.
My funds were sold on 7th April but still not transferred to the new provider. I think 13 working days is too much isn’t it?

artyboy

Fair to say that my experience with transferring out 2 separate WTW administered occupational schemes has been pretty awful.

It's not just the glacial pace. It's the huge volumes of manual and duplicative paperwork. For one transfer, they sent me an email with 13 different attachments. And no actual instructions beyond "read, complete and return as necessary".

Then there's the rigid interpretation of the Amber/red warning flags - god help you if you're transferring to a platform that dares to allow investments outside of the UK - that will add some more weeks to the process.

WTW as administrators do have to follow the rules of the schemes that they are managing. And occupational scheme trustees are often not the most progressive, nor do they have the greatest appetite for risk. But even so, WTW really do make a meal of things. I am soooooo glad to be rid of them.