Insurer LV= is in the throes of assessing how to meet the retirement needs of its 5,500-strong workforce as part of a review of the suitability of its default pension fund, said Pete Strudwick, pensions and performance partner at LV=, during an interview with Clare Bettelley, associate editor at Employee Benefits.
He explained: “We set our default fund up when we started our defined contribution scheme at the end of 2009, and since that time our membership has grown from around about 300 [members] at our first intake. We’re now up to about 5,500 members in the scheme.
“We did a lot of work when we set the default fund up in the first place, but I think now that we’ve got a larger and more diverse workforce, it’s an opportunity for us to relook at those people that we have in the scheme and make sure it’s still fit for purpose in terms of the default.”
He said that as part of this review, LV= hopes to move away from a one-size-fits-all default fund strategy, as well as to refresh its pension communications.
Strudwick participated in panel debate at Employee Benefits’ roundtable event, The future of default funds,which was held in December 2013 and sponsored by the Defined Contribution Investment Forum.
The roundtable debated a range of default fund issues in the context of pensions auto-enrolment, from the extent to which default funds are fit for purpose to how employers can communicate their default fund options to employees.
Read the digital edition of The future of default funds.
