WEALTH at work able to offer the new pension flexibilities

17th June 2015

There is a lot of discussion about how many pension providers or employers are choosing to, or are unable to offer the new pension flexibilities.

However, WEALTH at work – leading providers of financial education, guidance and advice in the workplace, believe that it is relatively easy for employees to get their money – they just need access to the right services such as those provided by WEALTH at work.

Jonathan Watts-Lay, Director, WEALTH a work comments, “If a pension provider or an employer is not wanting to, or able to offer the pension flexibility that an employee wants, there is nothing stopping that individual from transferring to a provider that does. In the same way that it was always encouraged for people to shop around for annuities, they should equally shop around for the right retirement solution under the new rules and not rely on their existing pension provider or scheme administrator for either the right deal, or indeed the best deal.”

He continues, “The main issue seems to be that many employers are just not equipped to offer the new flexibilities. It is like asking a butcher to start selling holidays. They possibly could do it, but there are other organisations with more experience in this area and with the infrastructure required, so it is better for employees to go to these experts.”

He explains, “If the employee is confident that they don’t want to take financial advice then they can transfer their money to a non-advised service provider, as long as they don’t have a pension that is protected by regulation, such as defined benefit schemes with values over £30,000 or specific protected benefits, in which case they are required to take advice for their own protection.”

He continues, “There is also the issue that many employees don’t want to have to pay fees for advice. However, two things needs to be remembered here; firstly many advisers will do the first meeting at no cost and secondly even if a non-advised route is followed, charges will still be payable on any service accessed. Ultimately, this may mean the cost of advice is no more than an individual may pay anyway, and it may even be less, but more importantly the Adviser would be able to look at their personal requirements and tailor any advice to their specific needs. In addition to which they have greater consumer protection for the advice which is given.”

Further coverage can also be found on Personnel Today.