Marian Elliott, Head of Trustee Advisory Services at Spence, commented: “Running a DB scheme isn’t easy. Trustees are asked to decipher information about the covenant, investment strategy and actuarial funding–often produced at different times, from different sources and with no clear link between them. Added to this, they are often also dealing with inaccurate and incomplete data and poorly-defined benefit structures, leading to the wrong decisions being made.
“To help trustees cut through these complexities, provide them with co-ordinated risk management and to get them from where they are now to where they want to be, we have developed a fully-integrated approach to better scheme management, combining leading-edge technology and specialist knowledge. This solution is revolutionary and, we believe, unique in the market. It moves away from multiple databases – one for actuarial work and another for administration records and uses a single database containing up-to-date live member data to manage the scheme and automate all administration and actuarial calculations.
“Full actuarial results are therefore available, daily, from anywhere in the world - allowing trustees to focus on what they should be doing - monitoring progress and managing strategy, without having to request updated figures on an ad hoc basis from the actuary.
Our approach allows our clients to identify risks and, importantly, capture opportunities as and when they arise. Trustees are able to make informed decisions based on clear, up to date information about their funding position, the quality and efficiency of administration calculations is improved and the governance of the scheme becomes more straightforward.
Elliott added: “Good and sensible use of technology is now synonymous with good scheme management and, by embracing it, employers and trustees are able to move their scheme forward in a way they haven’t been able to before.”
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