JLT Employee Benefits’ Tiziana Perrella told FTAdviser there had been a marked increase in the number of companies offering “pension increase exchanges” (PIEs), whereby members give up the right to annual benefit increases in exchange for a greater initial income.
Allan Maxwell, director of Corporate Benefits Consulting, said his firm had seen a surge in demand for enhanced transfer values (ETVs), which incentivise members to transfer out of the scheme altogether by offering them a larger lump sum than they are required to.
Both Ms Perrella and Mr Maxwell said companies were undertaking these exercises to reduce liabilities in an effort to prepare for bulk annuity buyouts.
The pair said all firms would eventually seek to offload their entire scheme onto an insurance company.
However, the increased interest in incentive exercises has raised questions over whether members are being adequately protected from employers keen to offload members.
The Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority confirmed regulatory responsibility for this area was split between the two.
TPR has responsibility for the pension scheme side, while FCA regulates the advice provided to members wanting to transfer out.
Mr Maxwell, whose firm is paid by sponsoring employers to provide the advice to members considering transferring out, told FTAdviser there was no pressure to advise in favour of a transfer. “We’re getting paid no matter what happens, whether we transfer people out or not,” he said.
Nevertheless, he said an ETV exercise could result in 60 to 70 per cent of members transferring out of the scheme. Even when take-up was low, it was still at 20 to 30 per cent, he said.
Mr Maxwell put the spike in interest in ETVs down to the introduction of pension freedoms - which make transferring out considerably more attractive because it means members can drawdown all of their cash in one go - and improved economic conditions after the 2008 financial crisis.
He said ETVs were popular with companies with spare cash and a deficit that is not overly large. “If you’ve got no money and a huge deficit, it’s not going to happen,” he said.
Ms Perrella said her corporate clients had, in recent years, been favouring pension increase exchanges over ETVs, partly because plummeting gilt yields pushed transfer values to historic highs.
However, while any scheme could, in theory, undertake an ETV, she pointed out that only schemes whose annual benefit increases are above the legal minimum could undertake PIEs.
Ms Perrella said that members were required to take advice on PIEs, and were always presented with details such as the “break even point”.
However, she conceded that PIEs worked in the opposite way to an annuity, in that the longer you live, the worse of a deal you get.
“They need to know what they are giving up. For all these exchanges, there is scope for making the right call or not making the right call.”
james.fernyhough@ft.com
