Almost half of the respondents (48%) to the Employee Benefits/Capita Pensions Research 2013 still offer a group personal pension (GPP) as their primary pension plan.
This is in line with Employee Benefits’ 2011 pensions research, in which 54% of respondents said a GPP was their primary plan choice. Similarly, GPPs were the most popular choice for employers five years ago in 2008, with 54% of respondents opting for this plan as their primary offering.
The research, which was conducted among 370 HR and benefits managers, found that trust-based defined contribution (DC) pension schemes have overtaken stakeholder plans as the second most popular choice for employers’ primary pension plan.
Where employers run more than one type of pension plan, the defined benefit (DB) scheme closed to new members is most common as a secondary plan, with 22% offering one.
This is a far cry from Employee Benefits’ pensions research in 2000, when 39% of employers offered DB schemes to all staff.
Cash balance schemes have yet to gather momentum, with just 1% offering one as their secondary plan.
Master trusts, such as the National Employment Savings Trust, are beginning to make an appearance (they were not even measured in Employee Benefits’ 2011 pensions research), with 3% of respondents now offering them as a primary scheme, and 6% using them as a secondary scheme.
Read the full version of Employee Benefits/Capita Pensions Research 2013
