Jane Kola comments in Pensions Expert on the Pensions Regulator writing to 120 schemes about incorrect equalisation calculations
The Pensions Regulator has written to the trustees of 120 pension schemes administered by Prudential making them aware of potential pension payment errors.
Members of these schemes could have been receiving the wrong pension for nearly 30 years as a result of incorrect equalisation calculations.
Jane Kola said “the issue identified with 120 schemes administered by the Prudential, on its own is not likely to be a big issue as the schemes affected are likely to be small.”She said the case is an example of a much wider problem, which is that “legal formalities to make effective benefit changes have not been respected in the past and there has been a disconnect between what the rules say and what administrators pay”.According to Jane “equalisation is only one issue which happens to be the one schemes check”.
Jane said that when trustees look in more detail at the documentation history of their pension plan and the calculation routines used, they seldom find that everything is in order.
“The earlier trustees bite the bullet and sort out the detail of the benefits payable the more confident they can be that they are meeting their legal obligation to pay the right benefit to the right people at the right time,“ she said.
Read Jane’s comments in Pensions Expert.
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