Retirement Reforms & Pension Wise
The new rules require firms to give appropriate retirement risk warnings to consumers who have decided to access their pension savings on an execution-only basis. The risk warnings will relate to how the consumer wants to access their pension savings – for example, through a pension annuity, taking savings in cash through an uncrystallised fund pension lump sum (UFPLS), pension drawdown or some other combination.
The trigger for firms to follow the steps in the retirement risk warning rules is the consumer saying (verbally or in writing) that they want to access their savings, regardless of whether the consumer makes contact with the firm or the firm contacts the consumer (even if the purpose of the contact was initially for some other purpose, such as a promotion).
The retirement risk warnings must be given to the consumer regardless of whether they have already received guidance from Pension Wise or taken regulated advice. The exceptions are where:
Ø an adviser contacts a firm to transact on behalf of a consumer they have given regulated advice to, or
Ø the firm believes that retirement risk warnings already given under these rules are still appropriate.
For those consumers who have received regulated advice but who are contacting a firm directly to access their pension savings, the risk warnings will still be important. The consumer may be choosing a different course of action from what was advised, and the firm required to provide the risk warning may not know the content of the advice.
The issue is the risk warnings you give depend on the risk identified which is why you need to go through a 3 step flowchart and keep a record of the process to evidence this has been covered
