Some pension providers are making life difficult for advisers wanting to enrol clients, according to reports. But all employers will eventually have to enrol their employees and, if you are conducting auto-enrolment business, working with pension providers is unavoidable.
Find out how to make the transition a little smoother with our top tips.
1. Get in there early. Getting your employer clients on the right track for auto-enrolment as early as possible is critical. Providers may not be able to implement a scheme right away depending on capacity, but if you have joined a queue early enough, there should be plenty of time to get things sorted before your client’s staging date.
2. Make sure you know who does what. Some pension providers offer a much more comprehensive service than others. Some offer a holistic service, while some offer only the pension scheme, meaning all other admin-type jobs needs to be completed in advance, such as segregating employees into eligible or not. Having the necessary tasks sorted makes it easier to get the ball rolling with providers.
3. Check if a pension scheme already exists. Many employers will already have a scheme in place and it is part of the auto-enrolment analysis to check whether it is a qualifying scheme. It may be appropriate to extend the scheme, or it might be better to set up a whole new one, depending on the circumstances.
4. Know who offers what. While some pension providers will offer a scheme to all ends of the market, others are much more fussy. Take a look at the latest Money Management auto-enrolment survey to see the minimum accepted by providers.
5. Consider a blended solution. Where a workforce is separated into distinct groups – or the employer wants to offer a more generous scheme to one section of the business and a more basic service to another – you may want to consider more than one provider. Although this increases the number of companies in the equation, it could provide the best solution to your client.
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