Work with Pension Works

Pension Works are one of the UK’s leading independent, Defined Benefit Advice specialists.

We support financial advisers by advising on their clients’ Defined Benefit pension transfers, whilst allowing them to retain the funds under management and receive up to 30% of our Full Advice Fee.

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"We would strongly recommend Pension Works to any Financial Services business looking to introduce pension related consumer enquiries."

Financial Advice Group – Leeds

Our Team

Our team of pension transfer specialists are fully authorised and directly regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Using industry-leading systems we provide high-quality, compliant Defined Benefit Transfer advice to clients throughout the UK.

Our Service

With ISO9001 accreditation and the Pension Transfer Gold Standard, we consistently strive to provide exceptional levels of customer service and compliance. Every single file is compliance checked multiple times to ensure that we only ever provide advice that is in the client’s best interest.

Client Criteria

We believe that financial advice should be available to the masses.

With this in mind, we apply the following case acceptance criteria:

The Transfer Value must exceed £30,000
You must be at least 54 ½ years of age (unless terminally ill)
You must be a current UK resident and UK taxpayer (or non-taxpayer)
The DB scheme must be UK-based
You must not be an Insistent Client (see above)
You must not be on means tested benefits (excluding Child Benefit)
You must not be planning to move abroad in the next 5 years
You must not be an active member of the scheme Pension Works are being asked to advise on
We can only provide advice on active transfer values, and a transfer can only proceed if the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) deadline has been met. Pension Works are not responsible for any costs associated with requesting a new CETV.
If a transfer out of your pension scheme is recommended, Pension Works will also recommend an appropriate investment solution to receive the transfer. We cannot advise clients who wish to choose their own proposed scheme and investments, also known as self-investors.
If you are looking at moving any of your pension(s) we strongly recommend you seek specialist financial advice from a FCA regulated Financial Adviser. You must only transfer into a regulated plan/mainstream Investment held with a regulated Investment/Pension company.
Pensions Works are unable to consider a transfer for a client who is separated from their spouse or in the process of going through a divorce until there is a court approved and signed pension sharing order or finalised financial settlement.
Under no circumstances are you to move away from our recommended investment solution and into an unregulated pension, unregulated investment, non-mainstream investment or invest in Crypto Currency.
You must not be looking to utilise your pension to acquire land or commercial property through a SIPP, SSAS or any other pension vehicle.

Purely Independent

Pension Works are completely independent. We work with a huge variety of insurance companies and have access to hundreds of products. These are some of the companies we work with:

Your Client Process

All your clients will follow the simple process outlined below

Initial Engagment

At the start of the process we take the time to explain everything to your client, as well as issuing our Terms of Business and brochure, which includes an overview of our charges. If we have not already obtained a signed Letter of Authority, we will ask your client to sign and return this for their pensions.

Information Gathering

When we receive the signed Letter of Authority, we will contact the pension providers to gather any relevant scheme details.

Fact Find Meeting

Your client will be asked to watch our ‘Triage’ video and review a series of case studies. This provides even more insight to help them decide whether they wish to continue with the advice process. If they agree to proceed, their dedicated Financial Adviser will carry out a detailed ‘Fact Find’ meeting via telephone to gather as much information as possible about their financial life and talk in detail about their objectives.

Initial Advice

This Abridged Advice, is a shortened form of regulated advice which will determine whether a transfer out of your client's Defined Benefit scheme is unsuitable or unclear. This will be presented to them as an Initial Advice report.

Full Advice

If the outcome of the Initial Advice is unclear, your client is able to choose to proceed through to Full Advice. This will involve a full comprehensive analysis of their pension scheme, in order to deliver a personal recommendation. A full report will be issued to your client and an advice meeting will be held with their dedicated Financial Adviser. The outcome of the advice will either be for your client to transfer your pension or alternatively maintain their pension in its current place.

Transfer

Should a transfer be deemed suitable and your client wishes to proceed, we will issue them the required documents and facilitate the transfer.

At this point, once our fee has been paid we will notify you allowing you to take over the servicing rights and therefore retain the funds under management.

Our Fees

Defined Benefit Review Service

Initial Report Fee	Free
Full Report Fee
First £50,000	3%
All Remaining	2.5%
Minimum Fee	£2,495
Maximum Fee	£14,950

Click here for our Defined Benefit fee calculator

Example of Our Fees

Example Of Our Fees	Fund Value Transferred	Fee Percentage	Fee
Defined Benefit Review	£75,000	Minimum Fee	£2,495
Defined Benefit Review	£250,000	2.6%	£6,500

Pay Away

Introducer Pay Away is calculated and paid from the client Implementation Fee and paid within days of receipt of payment from the scheme.

We know that each of our Partners, and each of their clients, are different so we offer three tiers of Pay Away, each defined by the information received on submission of the case:

Pension Works offer adjustable Pay Away for introducing firms. This means you can reduce how much of the fee you would like to receive, that amount you sacrifice will be deducted from the client’s overall fee at the full advice stage.

Lead Type	Percentage Pay Out	What information do you need to supply?
Standard	20%	Client Details
Packaged Basic	25%	Client Details
Packaged Basic	25%	Signed Pension Works LOA
Packaged Enhanced	30%	Client Details
		Signed Pension Works LOA
		Full policy information for the pensions we are to advise on.

Dedicated Account Management

We understand the significance of the role we are playing in shaping the future of each of your clients. The process your client will go through can take a number of months and involves several different stages.

Each introducer working with us will be allocated an Account Manager who they will have access to throughout the working week.

Your account manager will be your primary point of contact for the following:

Updates on your existing clients
Queries relating to future prospects
Discuss any potential future products or services which you may find useful

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Now working with over 1100 IFA firms across the UK

Introducer Portal

Our Introducer Portal allows you to sign up and submit a client case within 15 minutes and monitor its progress throughout:

1.) Customer List

Allows you to view all clients you have introduced to Pension Works, along with their current status, level of Pay Away, unique reference numbers and more.

2.) New Customer

Allows you to introduce a new client to Pension Works. The type and amount of information you upload at this point affects your level of Pay Away.

3.) Document Library

View the latest version of the Pension Works Terms of Business and other important documents.

4.) Company Admin

Manage your company information, address and user accounts for the Pension Works Introducer Portal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is responsible for the advice?

All our Advisers are directly employed by Pension Works and we accept full liability for the Advice that we provide.

What timescales can I expect on a case?

Our internal systems and teams are highly efficient. By deploying our bespoke software, our resource of over 15 paraplanners, and specific liaison teams, we can process cases extremely effectively and meet deadlines wherever possible.

Can you accept higher volumes of referrals?

Our operation is specifically designed to cater for high volumes of referrals whilst maintaining high levels of customer service.

What investments do you recommend?

Asset allocation is one of the most important investment decisions. It determines how portfolios will be positioned for the long term and exactly how it can capture opportunities and respond to the risks. For this reason, we outsource asset allocation decisions to the investment manager whilst ensuring the portfolio is aligned to the client’s agreed risk profile.

Our approach is to identify a panel of ready-made multi-asset funds that are aligned to our chosen risk rating system, and are available through our selected pension providers at a low cost.

There are a number of different types of investment solutions to consider, ranging from multi-asset funds to model portfolios through to full DFM solutions. There are also different investment styles, such as passive and active management.

Can I determine where funds are invested?

We focus predominantly on the providers within our Centralised Investment Proposition.

Can I refuse my Pay Away?

Yes. Introducer fees can be sacrificed and deducted from the client fee at your request.

*Defined Contribution Pensions*	These are ‘Pot of Money’ pensions where the benefits provided take into account the value of the fund at retirement. They can be personal pensions or Occupational Pensions. There are no guarantees as to what pension will be provided. This will be a reflection of contributions made and investment growth.
*Defined Benefit Pensions*	These offer the promise of a guaranteed pension at retirement which reflects the length of service with an employer. It will be based on either the Final Salary or Average Career Salary of the employee. Providing the company is still in existence, there is no investment risk for the pension receiver. This type of pension is becoming less frequent.
*Private Pensions*	This is a generic term for pensions that are not workplace schemes.
*Group Personal Pensions*	Employer-sponsored schemes – each member has a personal pension plan, and their contract is with the pension provider. The employer’s role solely is to select the scheme provider, decide if there should be any restrictions on fund choices and take contributions from the employee’s pay and forward them with employer contributions to the pension provider.
*Self-Employed Pensions*	A private pension arrangement or personal pension is taken out by a sole-trader or self-employed worker.
*SERPS Pensions*	State Earnings Related Pension (formerly Graduated Pension and subsequently State 2nd Pension or S2P) was an additional element of State Pension for employees. The amount of pension was linked to the employee’s salary. SERPS was abolished in 2016 when the flat rate State Pension was introduced.
*Personal Pensions*	Private pensions are contracts between the pension member and an insurance company or another pension provider.
*SIPP Pensions*	These are personal pensions where the member has a much wider choice of investments, including commercial property and single company shares.
*Stakeholder Pensions*	Personal Pensions with a set of rules that impose amongst other things a maximum annual management charge (AMC), low minimum contribution levels (£20 per month) and an appropriate Default fund.
*FSAVC Pensions*	Private pension linked to an employer’s Defined Benefit Scheme but separate from the Scheme’s internal Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) arrangement – largely defunct since the rules were eased several years ago, allowing people to contribute to both personal and employment schemes as they wish.
*Money Purchase Pensions*	This is another name for Defined Contribution Pensions.