Dun & Bradstreet Ratings

The Dun & Bradstreet failure score plays a significant part in determining the size of your PPF levy and a small change in the failure score can have a massive impact on the levy. The graph below shows the percentage reduction in risk-based levy resulting from a five point improvement in failure score.



If the PPF levy represents a significant cost for your pension scheme there are issues employers and trustees should be considering now.  A short checklist setting of the points that need to be considered is available here.

At Barnett Waddingham we have built up considerable expertise in this area. In particular we have carried out a detailed analysis of the D&B scoring system and have identified the weightings given by D&B to different company factors. This means we can assist our clients in making specific individual changes which optimises their score.

We can quantify the reduction in the levy resulting from a particular course of action taken by the company. Clients have found this particularly useful when considering which changes to make and has enabled them to save many thousands of pounds on their levies.

The PPF have confirmed that Dun & Bradstreet will continue to be the insolvency risk provider for at least the 2011/12 levy year. 

The way that the PPF uses Dun & Bradstreet scores will be changing for the 2012/13 levy (please see our Breaking News section for more information).