No longer a back-office function, pensions administration has become a pivotal strategic driver for UK schemes eyeing the endgame. Greg Winterton spoke to Daniel Taylor, Client Director at Trafalgar House, to explore the essential priorities for trustees navigating the complex path toward de-risking.
GW: Daniel, let’s start with schemes that are on or near the start line in their de-risking journey. Insurers are becoming more selective about which schemes they choose to price. What are a couple of administrative ‘red flags’ that you believe would cause an insurer to decline a quote for a scheme, and what should trustees do to remediate them before they approach the market?
DT: It’s quite rare for an insurer to outright refuse to quote, but where administration isn’t in good shape you do start to see uncertainty creep in. That tends to come through in pricing, or sometimes a more general question about whether the scheme is ready to transact.
Data is always the obvious starting point, but I’d say rule readiness is often the bigger pressure point. We still see schemes working through equalisation, underpins, historic quirks in the rules, and in some cases a disconnect between what the rules say and how benefits have actually been administered over time. That’s where things can get heavy quite quickly, because you move into full rectification territory.
And the reality is, you can’t really separate the two. If you’re not confident the rules have been applied consistently, it’s quite hard to say the data is sound.
It’s rarely about one party getting it wrong. Most of this comes from years of change, layering and well-intentioned decisions that build complexity over time. But it does mean trustees need to start earlier than they think. Get under the bonnet of the benefit specification, challenge historic practice, and don’t assume these issues will be easier to deal with once you’re mid-transaction. They usually aren’t.
GW: The Pensions Regulator is increasingly focused on trustee knowledge and administrative oversight. How is this impacting a scheme’s readiness for a de-risking solution – have you noticed? What should they be asking for beyond the standard “SLA percentage” charts to truly understand their scheme’s readiness?
DT: I think it’s nudging trustees in the right direction, to be honest. There’s a bit more curiosity now, and a willingness to look beyond the headline numbers.
SLA charts are useful, but they only tell you so much. You can have strong SLA performance and still have quite a bit sitting underneath that could slow you down later. Things like older unresolved cases, areas where calculations rely on manual workarounds, or where the benefit specification hasn’t been properly revisited for a while.
Those are the conversations trustees should be having. Not just “are we on time?” but “what’s still sitting there that could trip us up?” and “how confident are we in the way benefits are actually being calculated today?”
It’s less about speed and more about control, I think. If you’re heading towards buy-in or buy-out, you want a clear line of sight on what’s been done, what hasn’t, and what that means in practice.
GW: Research shows that three-quarters of professional trustees experience delays of six months or more when moving from buy-in to buy-out. What are the ‘hidden’ data gaps trustees need to be conscious of now so that they can avoid a multi-year limbo after the buy-in deal is signed?
DT: It’s interesting, because the focus naturally goes on getting the buy-in over the line. And in a busy market, with limited resource, that’s understandable. But it does mean the buy-out phase can lose a bit of momentum.
What tends to get pushed back are the less visible pieces of work. Benefit specification reviews, follow-up on known data issues, historic rule checks, things that aren’t urgent until suddenly they are.
We often see recommendations made quite early on that don’t get picked up at the time. Not for bad reasons, just competing priorities. But then they resurface right in the middle of the transaction window, when everyone is already stretched.
That’s where delays really build. It’s not usually that the issues weren’t known, it’s that they were parked.
So, the simple answer, even if it’s not always the easy one, is to start earlier and keep chipping away at it. Treat that preparation work as part of the journey, not something to squeeze in at the end.
GW: The transition from buy-in to buy-out can result in a temporary drop in service levels or digital functionality for members. What should trustees do to ensure that scheme members’ ‘human’ experience, particularly for complex queries, doesn’t deteriorate once the trustee board steps away?
DT: This is one that doesn’t always get the airtime it probably deserves.
There’s often a lot of focus on the transaction itself, but less on what the experience actually looks like for members afterwards. Who are they speaking to? How are queries handled? What changes in practice?
I think trustees need to get much closer to that detail during the selection process. Not just “have you worked with this insurer before?”, but how the operational relationship will actually function day to day. How data flows, how queries are handled, how complex cases are picked up.
And I’d bring the administrator into that conversation much earlier. They’re the ones who understand how things really work in practice, and too often they’re left to pick things up after the decision has been made.
There’s a cost to doing that work upfront, but it’s usually worth it. You protect the member experience, and you avoid a lot of friction later on.
GW: Lastly, Daniel, looking ahead – what is the key message for DB pension trustees that are looking to de-risk in the next few years with regards to their current and future administration setup?
DT: Demand is high, resource is tight, and that doesn’t look like changing any time soon. So, the main message is really about getting ahead of it.
There’s some good guidance emerging now, particularly from PASA, around how to approach the journey in a more structured way. But it only really works if you start early and make proper use of the people around you.
That includes your administrator. Bring them into the conversation, ask the awkward questions, get their view on what’s going to be difficult and where the pressure points are. They see the detail day in, day out.
The schemes that tend to move more smoothly are the ones that treat administration as part of the strategy, not something sitting off to the side. It sounds simple, but it does make a difference.
Daniel Taylor is Client Director at Trafalgar House and a Non-Executive Director of PASA.
