Partner Article

Personal risk management is a trustee hot topic

The issue of personal risk management for pension trustees is one that is often overlooked and as a result, the insurance options available to trustees are not that well known. At a recent seminar entitled “Optimise outcomes, minimise risk’ organized by independent actuaries Mitchell Consulting in conjunction with The Occupational Pensions Defence Union, (OPDU) the subject was very well received by industry professionals and trustees alike.

Neil Barton, Business Development Manager at Mitchell Consulting said: “There is no doubt that the complex pensions landscape offers numerous challenges to trustees who are continually faced with the fact that they could, albeit in rare circumstances, be personally liable for any losses. We wanted to advise colleagues in the industry about the latest solutions that offer personal risk management for trustees.”

The event was hosted by law firm Gately Plc and around 80 delegates including trustees, lawyers, in-house pension managers, actuaries and investment experts heard specialists discuss how trustees can obtain comprehensive insurance cover to ‘achieve the aim of insuring everyone who might become liable for a loss as a result of internal maladministration of the pension scheme’.

In addition, the subject of pension surety bonds was covered by representatives of Gately Plc and Euler Hermes. Surety bonds are designed so that an insurance company will pay a defined amount to the pension scheme should a specific trigger event (such as insolvency of the scheme sponsor) occur. They are a very new entrant to the solutions available to sponsors of pension schemes, and for many delegates the bonds were something new. Many had a significant interest and were keen to understand more about this exciting new area.

“The feedback from delegates was very positive,” said Neil. “Personal risk management for trustees is a hot topic at the moment and they are rightly concerned about minimising that risk - this seminar covered all of the bases for our delegates and we are now looking at rolling out the programme.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Republic Relations .