Broadstone’s Nigel Jones and Liz Loosmore were delighted to attend the Pension Protection Fund’s (PPF) 20-year celebration at the House of Commons.
This event marked two decades of the lifeboat fund’s significant contributions to improving the outcomes for members when employers, unfortunately, go bust. The PPF now provides pensions compensation to nearly 440,000 former Defined Benefit (DB) members across both the PPF and the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), while also provide protection for a further 9 million members.
Before the PPF was established in 2005, there was a substantial risk that DB members could receive nothing from their employer’s pension scheme upon insolvency, even if they had contributed to it throughout their working lives.
Broadstone has been a member of the PPF’s Specialist Administration & Actuarial Services Panel since its inception. This is a great honour and something the firm is proud of. The team has thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to assist trustees in navigating the PPF’s assessment period together with providing better outcomes and greater certainty to members.
An employer going insolvent is naturally a worrying time, so it is gratifying to be able to reassure members and ensure they receive their entitlements in a timely manner.
Many of the schemes Broadstone has worked with have been highly diverse, each presenting its own unique set of challenges. These schemes have ranged from those with only six members to much larger, more well-known ones such as Debenhams, Carillion, and Bernard Matthews.
With recent improvements in funding, many schemes are now being deemed PPF+, with consolidator and insurer options being explored to provide enhanced benefits with thankfully fewer schemes needing the lifeboat. Despite this change in activity, the PPF remains a source of good and an engaged player in the pensions landscape.
We look forward to many more years working with the PPF to help them achieve their goals of secure outcomes for members.
