Category Archives: Pensions

News, Pensions

On International Women’s Day, Punter Southall Aspire calls on employers to help tackle the gender pension gap

Women can often lose out financially when it comes to both pay and pensions, which is why on International Women’s Day (8th March) Sarah Tolson, Director of Marketing at Punter Southall Aspire, is urging employers to offer female workers financial education to raise awareness of how to plug the gender pensions gap.

Last year, Legal & General[i] highlighted that the difference in pension pot sizes between men and women begins at the start of their careers. The initial gap in pension savings starts at 16% but can double by the time women reach their 40s. In their 50s it could be 51% and by retirement up to 55% smaller than men’s on average.

Among full-time employees the Office for National Statistics[ii] highlights that the gender pay gap in April 2022 was 8.3%, up from 7.7% in April 2021. This has also led to a savings gap with women across the UK saving a third less than men, leaving a disparity of 40% between men and women at the age of retirement.

There is some positive news for women when it comes to the state pension, though. Reforms since 2016 have seen the average amount of new state pension claimed by women now £170.52 compared to just £152.12 for women claiming the basic state pension. Men have lost £2.76 but still get just over £5 more than women a week[iii].

 

Sarah says, “Women are hit financially from all sides with the impact of earning less than men affecting both savings and pensions. Even the gain on the state pension sees women still getting less overall. Add to the equation the fact that women are more likely to take a career break or work part-time when they have a family, and it’s little wonder many are at a big disadvantage financially by the time they retire.”

 

Women can often lose out if they get divorced, too, with a significant proportion of women either overlooking or not being aware of the value of a pension.

Around four in ten marriages[iv] end in divorce in the UK but according to a survey earlier last year by Which? members, only 15% of couples include the pension in the joint assets they seek to divide[v].

 

Sarah recommends employers support their female workers by offering them financial education so that they understand more about how to address these issues.

Sarah says, “Knowledge is power but often women are unaware of the consequences that taking a career break can have on pension savings, or that in a divorce taking account of pensions when splitting up joint assets can make a big difference to future finances.

“On International Women’s Day we urge employers to help women improve their financial health by raising awareness of some of the issues around pensions and savings to help them make better financial decisions.”

 

[i] https://www.legalandgeneral.com/retirement/rewirement/setting-financial-goals/gender-pension-gap

[ii] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/genderpaygapintheuk/2022

[iii] https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2023/02/14/women-main-beneficiaries-of-state-pension-changes

[iv] https://dontdisappoint.me.uk/resources/lifestyle/divorce-statistics-uk

[v] https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/divorced-women-face-unstable-retirement-as-pensions-left-out-of-settlements-anmfG4g3IDTO

Employee Benefits, Mergers & Acquisitions, News, Pensions

20-20 Trustees and Punter Southall Governance Services merge

Punter Southall Governance Services (PSGS) and 20-20 Trustees (20-20) have today announced they are merging to form Vidett. With a team of 120 and 475 clients, Vidett is now the UK’s largest professional trustee and pension governance firm by number of clients.

In this true merger of equals, the new business will be jointly led by co-Chief Executives, Naomi L’Estrange (formerly Managing Director of 20-20) and Wayne Phelan (formerly Chief Executive Officer of PSGS). They’ll be supported by a senior leadership team drawn from across the predecessor businesses.

Commenting on the merger, Wayne and Naomi said: “We both independently concluded our businesses were complementary and combining them would add significant impetus to accelerate our growth plans. 20-20 and PSGS had different attributes but similar ambition and cultures, based on collaborative teamwork, sharing knowledge to drive progress for our clients and embracing innovation. As both firms have always been committed to delivering the best client service, this will be a key measure of Vidett’s success in the future.

The opportunity to work together excites us and we both believe this merger will be a significant boost for our teams. They’ll be part of a strong, confident business intent on leading the way in professional trusteeship and pension governance. We hope this will make us the employer of choice in what is a very competitive market.

The way we’ve worked so well together over the past months to create Vidett demonstrates how well aligned our teams are, how strong our vision for the business is and how quickly we can integrate.

Importantly, these are clear messages to both our clients and the professional advisers we work with about the seriousness of our offering and commitment to the market and the cohesion of Vidett.”    

Vidett is a privately owned business, independent from any other provider of services to corporate pension and employee benefit schemes. With an unrivalled knowledge bank to support client needs, Vidett currently looks after over 475 clients with total assets in excess of £142bn and over 2.5 million scheme members.

Appointments, News, Pensions

Punter Southall Governance Services makes two new scheme manager appointments to start 2023

Punter Southall Governance Services (PSGS) has boosted its team with the appointment of Toby Andersen and Karen Henderson as scheme managers.

Toby Andersen

Toby joins from Aztec Financial Services where he worked as a senior benefits specialist managing private medical, income protection, life assurance and flexible benefit schemes across Europe, the Middle East and Africa as well as pensions. He started his pensions career in 2012 at Mercer, before becoming an in-house secretary to the trustees and pensions manager at Lockheed Martin for six years.

Toby’s responsibilities included running the trustee board through triennial valuations, scheme returns, audits, annual reports, meetings and buy-out negotiations. His experience covered defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC), group personal pensions and master trust schemes.

 

Karen Henderson

Karen joins from Virgin Money where she worked in the internal pension governance team, supporting the trustees on activity and a variety of projects, including the merger of two DC schemes, guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) rectification and equalisation and a bulk pension increase exchange exercise.

Karen is highly experienced in managing pension administration projects, from implementing new schemes to managing them through the wind-up process and everything in between. She began her pensions career in 1990 at Scottish Amicable as a pension administrator and has also worked for Aon and Hymans Robertson.

 

Wayne Phelan, PSGS Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Recent business wins means we are expanding our governance and secretarial team and we are pleased to welcome Toby and Karen to the team at this exciting and busy time. Both are highly skilled with wide pensions knowledge and will be a real asset to our client schemes and trustees.”

HR, News, Pensions

Pensions make post-pandemic comeback to lead HR teams’ employee benefits list

  • Pensions topple flexible working to take 2022 top spot
  • Survey reveals stubborn Advice Gap continues to impact savers
  • Pension Potential, free for employers and employees, could mean thousands more for retirement.

 

Two years after flexible working pipped pensions to top spot in the employee benefits HR teams say their people value the most, they have regained pole position.

In this year’s Punter Southall Aspire survey carried out with People Management Insights, 900 of 1,188 HR professionals put pensions back at the top of the pile. Flexible working is still seen as an important feature but ranked lower with 893. Third was mental health and wellbeing on 882.

 

Punter Southall Aspire Chief Executive Steve Butler said pensions had traditionally been seen as the “jewel in the crown” of employee benefits but the unprecedented impact of covid and its effect on working patterns had dislodged it, albeit temporarily.

“Normal has become a concept few of us can agree on but seeing HR teams selecting pensions as the most important employee benefit means we are moving on from dealing with a receding global health crisis to planning for the future again with a measure of confidence,” he said.

“This demonstrates the direction of travel – pensions are a constant in a changing world but that doesn’t mean you can ignore them without a cost.”

 

Steve said 51 per cent of companies surveyed did nothing to support their staff on how to plan for life after work. While just under a third did provide access to some sort of guidance and 12 per cent actually paid for it. In summary, the Advice Gap remains a canyon.

“In principle, pensions are easy. Your employee pays in, your employer pays in, the taxman pays in to build up a pot. But there are very complex decisions to make when you are approaching retirement and this is where staff look to you, their employer. Do you think turning your back is the right thing to do?”

 

Steve added that this gap was the reason behind Pension Potential. Free to employers and free for their people to use, it’s an online tool to help people assess how large a retirement income their pension can buy for retirement by comparing every annuity on the market. It also offers a picture of what drawdown can look like or a mix of options.

“We know the pressures on payroll and learning and development budgets. This is a no-brainer if you have no budget because it won’t cost anything but offers real value to your people planning for later life. By looking at every annuity, they could retire more on thousands more than they thought they could,” he said.

—

Survey carried out with People Management Insights, Dec-Jan 2022/23, 1,188 responses

 

News, Pensions

Do your homework before buying annuities, warns Punter Southall Aspire CEO

Nearly one million workers aged 55 and over are considering annuities for retirement for the first time as their value soars against the backdrop of the increased cost of living[i].

Punter Southall Aspire Chief Executive Steve Butler welcomed Legal and General’s research but sounded a note of caution, warning people not to be carried away by headline figures before handing over their pension in exchange for what can be a guaranteed income.

 

Steve said: “Annuities have risen significantly and this is sensibly being reflected in greater interest from more people planning for life after work. Although rates have jumped enormously there is still a huge disparity between the value of annuities on offer.

“Shop around like you would for car insurance but it’s a bit different. You can always buy another motor policy once your deal comes to an end. Once you buy an annuity, there’s no going back. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime decision, not every couple of years. Make sure you have all the facts at your fingertips.

“Employers can play their part because employees look to them. Providing tailored guidance and online tools could prevent staff making a costly mistake and put them on the right path to making informed decisions about later life income.”

 

This research follows Canada Life’s which last year revealed average benchmark annuity rates1 were up by 44 per cent since January 2022, having reached a 14-year high in October.

Punter Southall Aspire’s Pension Potential is free to employers and free to use for staff. It can be added to employee benefits packages and platforms to help employees understand and compare EVERY annuity on the market.

Punter Southall Aspire also offers Aspire to Retire for companies to support employees planning for life after work.

[i] https://www.professionaladviser.com/news/4062388/annuities-vogue-million-pre-retirees-considering

News, Pensions

Purple Book 2022 highlights

Every December the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) publishes its ‘Purple Book’, which gives an overview of the UK’s Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes using data collected over the year to 31 March. While some of this information has now been overtaken by events that occurred during the latter half of 2022, it does provide a good steer as to the continued direction of travel for UK DB pension schemes.

Leah Summers

Leah Summers, consultant at pension and employee benefits specialist Quantum Advisory, extracts the key highlights from the 17th edition:

1.      Improved funding positions for schemes over the year

Funding levels on a section 179 basis improved by around 10% over the year to 31 March 2022, which was largely driven by market movements.

Many schemes benefited from strong equity returns and higher gilt yields resulting in lower pension liabilities.    

2.      A record level annual fall in DB scheme liabilities

In the year to 31 March 2022, section 179 liabilities fell by around 12% and buyout liabilities fell by around 10%.

Although market movements and insurer pricing are forever changing the decrease in buyout liabilities is likely to result in an increase in the number of schemes buying out their liabilities with insurance companies.

3.      Asset allocation remains similar

Schemes continue to invest largely in bonds (71.6%) with the second highest allocation in equity (19.5%). Both percentages were broadly unchanged to the allocations set out in the 16th edition of the Purple Book (72% and 19% respectively). In relation to the equity universe, the proportion of UK equities fell to a record low of less than 10%.

As DB pension schemes mature, schemes de-risk by moving their investments into lower risk assets. Therefore, it is expected that the percentage invested in bonds will remain high in the future.

4.      More schemes provide no accrual of benefits than those that do

In 2022, the proportion of DB schemes closed to future accrual increased from 48% to 51%. There were c100k less DB scheme members in 2022, however, the split between active, deferred and pensioner members remained the same as 2021.

The proportion of closed schemes has been gradually increasing since the PPF started publishing the Purple Book in 2006. 

5.      Reduction in PPF compensation

There were only 14 new schemes that entered PPF assessment over the year to 31 March 2022, the lowest number since the PPF’s inception in 2006. Due to improvements in funding levels, the combined deficit (claims) of the new schemes in 2022 was £12 million (on a section 179 basis). This is a significant reduction on the £1.9 billion of record claims in the 2019 Purple Book.

The PPF has commented that they have also experienced a material improvement in their funding position. This has led to the 2023/24 levy estimate almost halving to £200 million and most schemes are expected to pay less.

The 2022 Purple Book can be found here.

Quantum Advisory specialises in pension and employee benefits services to employers, scheme trustees and members. For more information about Quantum Advisory, please visit: https://quantumadvisory.co.uk.

 

Employee Benefits, News, Pensions

What are the top five health and benefits trends for SMEs in 2023?

Supporting employees with the cost of living crisis, providing access to healthcare services and looking after employee health and wellbeing will be top priorities for small businesses this year, according to Mark Fosh, Divisional Director at Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing.

Fosh says, “2023 will bring some challenges for small businesses who will need to balance the rising costs of running their business with the need to retain talent and keep employees engaged.  Financially, many businesses can’t afford to offer pay rises in line with inflation, however, there are other ways to support employees through this crisis.”

“With the NHS and GP services facing unprecedented pressure, offering access to healthcare services is going to be hugely valuable, as will be supporting employees with their wellbeing and health in general.”

Fosh suggests the following tips for SME businesses on how they can address these challenges, without breaking the bank.

 

1. Introduce a salary exchange pension scheme

A salary exchange pension scheme, sometimes called a salary sacrifice pension, is one tax-efficient option for SMEs to consider. Employees and employers can save money on National Insurance (NI) contributions and avoid the need for higher rate tax payers to claim higher rate tax relief. Some employers are choosing to redirect their National Insurance savings to boost employees’ pension pots or to fund additional employee benefits.

 

2. Review your employee benefits in 2023

Check your benefits still represent value for money and meet the needs of your business and people. You may find you are paying for benefits your people do not use or value. A good adviser can review your current benefit programme against your business needs, employee needs and budget to ensure that it is relevant and fit for purpose.

 

3. Promote your benefits

Don’t let your employee benefits be your best kept secret – promote benefits widely so your employees really understand their total remuneration and reward package which means they will be more likely to value and use their benefits. Good benefit communication will also ensure that your employees know how to access the benefits at the point of need.

 

4. Make healthcare more accessible

Widespread reports about the NHS being in crisis and waiting times at an all-time high are likely to be a cause for concern for many and particularly for employees waiting for diagnosis or treatment, which may lead to them taking time off work. This year, we expect more SMEs to introduce healthcare benefits. This may be extending existing healthcare benefits to more or all staff or introducing benefits such as private medical insurance (PMI), health cash plans, dental cover and virtual GP services.

Such benefits are likely to be popular as they provide reassurance employees can get the treatment and the healthcare advice they need when they need it. Many PMI policies now include value added services such as access to mental health nurses and online wellbeing support. PMI and healthcare benefits can often be more cost effective than people think.

 

5. Focus on wellbeing, particularly financial wellbeing

Workplace wellbeing has topped the agenda for many SMEs over the last few years and, 2023 will be no exception. Businesses recognise that promoting a healthy and active workforce can increase productivity, lead to a happier and healthier workforce and one that is likely to take less time off due to ill health.

 

This year, we expect financial wellbeing in particular to be popular. In the current climate, many employees are feeling the pinch. And let’s not forget, there has been a whole generation that has entered the UK workforce since the last big financial crash, who have never experienced a recession before and may be looking for guidance and support to help them manage their finances.

Money worries can have a detrimental impact on an individual’s mental wellbeing and impact their performance at work. Offering solutions such as financial education programmes, access to discount platforms, wellbeing apps such as Be Well World or financial advice sessions for staff can all help employees to take control of their finances.

Howden has also just launched a new employer guide – ‘Cost of living Crisis: A Guide for Employers’ offering 10 practical ways to support employees through the cost of living crisis.

 

For more information, please visit: www.howdengroup.co.uk

News, Pensions

Your lost pension pots…. As they won’t come looking for you – Duncan Stevens, CEO, Gretel finds pension worth £100k

Duncan Stevens is Chief Executive Officer at Gretel, a free platform to help people trace lost accounts, pensions and investments. He is in his 40s and recently went through the process of tracing a lost pension. He was successful and found a pension from a previous employer now worth £100K.

Duncan is a keen supporter of National Pension Tracing Day in October and wants to raise awareness of the challenges facing the pension industry at large in helping reunite people with their hard earned pension money.

He points to external research his company has done that shows that awareness is a big barrier to people reconnecting with their pension but that beyond that it is industry complexity which presents the greatest challenge – over 50% of people reported simply not knowing where or how to engage.

Duncan decided to trace a lost pension earlier this year. He points out that it wasn’t that he had forgotten about it, he had just been so busy with work in recent years it wasn’t a priority. However through his work developing Gretel it became front of mind and so the time was right for him to see if he could find it.

Duncan had no paperwork and only had the name of his previous employer to go on. He started by contacting the Government’s Pension Tracing Service. Unfortunately this wasn’t a great help. When he entered his previous company’s name who he worked for 18 years ago the service said the data had been archived but provided no advice beyond this.

Next he tried his former employer. They searched and came up with eight different pension schemes he could have been a member of but couldn’t tell him which one. It was therefore down to Duncan to contact them all, which he did.

After lots of phoning and writing to the various schemes he eventually found the pension which he says ironically was with a well-known TPA that prides itself on having incredibly proactive tracing methods. In fact Duncan had met the administrator prior to tracing his pension in a work capacity and they had told him they had a market leading tracing process.

Duncan’s experience suggests this is not the case. He has only moved house twice in 20 years, is on the electoral roll and has worked for several high profile finance / pension organisations – so is not someone who it would be difficult to find.  However it appears they never even tried to find him once.

He was delighted though to have finally found his pension, but the journey didn’t end there.  Duncan contacted the pension administrator but they wouldn’t tell him how much was in his deferred pot, insisting that they run some calculations first. It was almost three weeks later that a statement arrived and he discovered there was over £100K sitting in his pension pot.

Duncan says, “Despite this happy outcome, the tragedy is that I could perhaps have done far more with my investment had they only tried to reach out to me or made my information easy to find. To add to my frustration, the pension statement itself is full of jargon that even I can’t interpret despite my background. So it now sits in a drawer as I’m too frustrated and busy to speak to them to get the help I need.”

Duncan says that eventually he will get round to consolidating his pension pots. His experience though highlights that most pension companies don’t have the money or inclination to go looking for deferred members mainly because of the costs involved.

They may spend time looking for people nearing retirement or those already receiving their pension, but for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s it’s unlikely they will try to find them.

The onus is therefore on the individual to persevere like Duncan did and spend the time hunting down a pension if they believe they have one, but don’t have any paperwork.

Duncan adds, “My experience shows that even for someone with a financial background like myself it can be hard to locate a pension; for those that don’t even know they have a pension there is virtually no chance of them being reunited. A pension scheme is highly unlikely to come looking for you, especially if you are nowhere near retirement.

“This is why we set up Gretel, to provide a free, simple and accessible means to search for pensions and other financial products. Gretel doesn’t need a user to remember their pension provider or employer details, and because it doesn’t rely on them being able to find old paperwork it can save a huge amount of time and effort, as my own experience demonstrates.

“Therefore, I’d definitely encourage people to be proactive and search for a lost or forgotten pension. National Pension Tracing Day is doing a great job raising awareness of lost pensions and the web site has lots of tips on how to go about it. Most people won’t have a clue how to go about it, so this is a great place to start.”

 

Pensions, Retail, Retirement

Five easy steps for people to track down pensions on National Pension Tracing Day

Finding a lost or forgotten pension could be an unexpected bonus during this cost of living crisis, and Punter Southall Aspire, the firm behind National Pension Tracing Day, is urging people to find their pensions in five easy steps.

National Pension Tracing Day is on Sunday 30 October – the day the clocks go back. The campaign invites people to use that extra hour to join in a ‘Great Pension Treasure Hunt’ and search for their pensions. Experts estimate there could be 1.6 million lost pensions in the UK. That could equate to around 1 in 30 people finding a pension.

Last year, one person found three pensions worth a total of £55,000, another managed to retire seven years earlier than planned and another found two pensions, worth over £80,000.

 

Step 1 – Retrace career steps – People can start by heading down memory lane and making a list of places they’ve worked in the past and roughly how long they worked there. Looking through old CVs, payslips, P45s or P60s can help.

 

Step 2 – Check old papers – Search through paperwork and emails for old pension statements. Have a good hunt for a pension statement for each place worked. People should also think back to whether they ever had a separate personal pension and if they ever ‘contracted out’ of part of the State Pension[i]. It could mean they had a personal pension.

 

Step 3 – Sense check – Look through the paperwork to check if contact details are up to date for each pension pot. If they are not, get in touch with the provider or administrator to update them.  At the same time ask for an up- to-date statement. It could offer a welcome surprise.

 

Step 4 – Mind the gap – If people spot any gaps in their pension history it’s time for some detective work.  For jobs where they don’t have a pension statement, try to find contact details for the pension provider or administrator. They could contact the employer’s HR department directly or use the government’s Pension Tracing Service.

 

If old employers can’t be found, they may have changed their name or merged with another organisation. Try searching Companies House – it lists companies’ previous names with their current registered office address. Or, people that worked for a charity could search the Charities Register.

Employers may have used a personal pension (possibly called a ‘group personal pension’) or a group stakeholder plan as their workplace pension. Find the name of the pension provider, perhaps by contacting an old employer, speaking to ex-work colleagues or finding old paperwork.

 

Step 5 – Get in touch – Get in touch with the provider or administrator and check if they’ve got any record of a pension. People will need to prove who they are so will need their National Insurance number and possibly other details. It’s also worth asking them to check if they did have a pension with them but transferred it elsewhere.

 

Not everyone will find a pension, but for those that do the final part of the treasure hunt is:

  • find out how much is in the pot and ask for an up-to-date statement
  • give them up-to-date contact details so the provider can keep in touch in future
  • ask if they can be registered to access the pension information online
  • Celebrate! They have found lost treasure they had forgotten all about

Alan Morahan, Chief Commercial Officer, says, “Finding an old pension is like paying yourself money you didn’t know you had, so we urge everyone who thinks they might have lost or forgotten a pension to spend some time going through these steps.  It’s very straightforward and could really change someone’s life as it has done for the people who followed the campaign last year.”

Johanna Nelson, Communications Director, Punter Southall Aspire, added, “There is nothing to lose and everything to gain by spending the extra hour searching for money. We encourage everyone to join the Great Pension Treasure Hunt.”

National Pension Tracing Day won the Pensions Age Thought Leadership Award and the UK Pensions Awards Educational and Thought Leadership Initiative of the Year.

Find out more at www.nationalpensiontracingday.co.uk.

 

[i] Contracting out was popular in the late 1980s and 1990s. You stopped building up part of the State Pension. In return you either paid lower National Insurance contributions, or some of your National Insurance contributions went into a pension for you. This could have been a workplace or personal pension – so there could be a missing personal pension for you.

News, Pensions

Free Tools for HR supports Employers to back National Pension Tracing Day and reunite people with lost pensions – helping ease cost of living crisis.

Punter Southall Aspire, the firm behind the award-winning communications campaign for National Pension Tracing Day has launched a free new communications toolkit for employers and Trustees. 

National Pension Tracing Day is on Sunday 30 October – the day the clocks go back. The campaign invites people to use that extra hour to join in a ‘Great Pension Treasure Hunt’ and search for lost and forgotten pensions. The free communications toolkit gives HR professionals the tools they need to raise awareness and show their people how to find lost or unclaimed pension money. There’s an estimated £19 billion of lost and forgotten pensions.

The campaign is ideal for businesses looking to support staff through the current cost of living crisis. There’s evidence to suggest people are dropping out of pension saving because they can’t afford to make ends meet. By raising awareness of National Pension Tracing Day, companies can help their people find lost money.

Experts estimate there could be 1.6 million lost pensions in the UK. That could equate to around 1 in 30 people finding a pension they’re unaware of. Depending on the company size there could be lots of ‘winners’ within an organisation.

The new communications toolkit includes a set of ‘ready to go’ communications including posters, intranet banners, news article, an email campaign, a pension tracing checklist, a step-by-step video and much more. All the content is supported by the #NationalPensionTracingDay website.

The campaign which launched last year has already changed lives. One person found three pensions worth a total of £55,000. Someone else managed to retire seven years earlier than they’d planned and another person found two pensions, worth over £80,000. They were very grateful to their employer who had raised awareness.

 

Kara Duncombe, pensions specialist for law firm Trowers & Hamlins promoted the campaign last year to staff in their London, Birmingham, Manchester and Exeter offices by using the communications.

Kara said: “I was astonished at the amount of pension money people hadn’t claimed. In the current climate, more than ever, any extra money is a good thing.  We promoted the National Pension Tracing Day pack on the intranet and used the posters. As a business, if you could take these simple steps, why wouldn’t you? Not only might it help your people, but they are likely to mention it to friends and family too.

“Like me, some colleagues were surprised at what seemed forgotten and thought about where they had worked before. Had they ticked off everything when they moved? All in all, it was a positive reaction. As a business, all the materials were already drawn up and ready to go so it was a minimal effort to help point people in a direction which could be really beneficial for them. I’d urge every organisation to get behind it.”

 

Johanna Nelson, Communications Director, Punter Southall Aspire says, “Using the toolkit makes it easy for employers and Trustees to encourage people to use the extra hour when the clocks go back to trace unclaimed pensions.  People don’t need to be financial experts, it’s really just a bit of detective work… a pension treasure hunt, and by following the guidance in our toolkit, anyone can do it.

 

Alan Morahan, Chief Commercial Officer, added, “When we launched National Pension Tracing Day last year it really took off and thousands joined in. We attracted sponsorship from Aegon, Legal & General, Scottish Widows and Standard Life. This year promises to be even bigger. We’ve welcomed Aviva, Hargreaves Lansdowne, Royal London and Smart Pension on board as new sponsors. And we’ve partnered with the industry Pension Attention campaign. “

 

National Pension Tracing Day won the Pensions Age Thought Leadership Award and the UK Pensions Awards Educational and Thought Leadership Initiative of the Year.

 Businesses who want to take part can go to the website or download the communications toolkit here.