Actuarial services for trustees
Providing a complete, tailored actuarial service for defined benefit pension schemes
Delivering independent and quality actuarial advice, we bring bespoke insights and solutions that are tailored to your needs.
We provide the full range of actuarial services to trustees of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, ranging from strategic to operational. We specialise in ensuring that your specific needs are addressed as the primary focus.
We don’t believe in a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to the actuarial services we offer trustees and we don’t have any external stakeholders to satisfy. This means we are free to act in your best long-term interests. We call this free thinking and it's in our DNA.
Our team
All of our teams are well-balanced, made up of experienced advisers who are either professionally qualified or are studying for professional exams. We recruit talented graduates each year and provide an extensive professional training and development program. This ensures we can provide you with quality and cost efficient services.
We have over 140 qualified Actuaries who are appointed to over 330 DB pension schemes, some of which have been with us for over 20 years. We provide tailored services to scheme trustees, across all of our nine offices, with fund sizes ranging from £1 million to over £5 billion.
Many of our clients choose us to provide full services (actuarial, administration and investment) to their schemes. This enables them to benefit from joined-up advice from one advisory team all working together to deliver the best outcomes for their scheme and members.
Our technology
To help trustees make the best decisions for their scheme, we design and build our own technology and tools to help you assess your options and see the potential impact of your decisions.
Our proprietary interactive system, Illuminate, enables you to analyse the relationship between funding, investment and employer covenant through the use of simple-to-use dashboards.
Explore what we can do for you and your scheme
Acting as appointed Scheme Actuary is a central part of our business and we are a leading provider of these services in the UK. Our experienced team of Scheme Actuaries provide clear, concise advice that is tailored to your needs.
Our mission is to help you approach your endgame journey with confidence. We do this by focusing your time and resources on the most important big strategic picture issues facing the scheme – making sure that the decisions you are taking are the best possible to help you achieve your long-term goal.
We use a clear and simple decision-making framework that we call DB Navigator®. Using this framework, our consultants will ensure you have a holistic and dynamic strategy, with integrated risk management at its heart.
Life expectancy has been rising in recent years. Many schemes are finding they need to invest more time in considering the most appropriate mortality assumptions to use. Our client teams work in tandem with our specialist Longevity Consulting team to provide a concise report making best use of the data available and tailored to the specific needs of your scheme.
Obtaining quotes requires careful consideration. Which insurers should be approached? How should the process be run? Which members should be insured? What is an acceptable price? As independent experts, with considerable experience in this market, we can provide unbiased opinions of the bulk annuity providers in the market and help you become comfortable with the transaction.
Exercises providing members with more options around taking their benefits, like promoting cash equivalent transfer values or offering pension increase exchange, are becoming increasing popular with trustees. Not only can they reduce the cost or risk (or both) of running your DB scheme and speed up the time to reaching your ultimate goal but also help your members make more informed decisions about their retirement. Our experts can help you design and implement member options exercises specifically for your scheme.
If your scheme is still open to new members, open to future accrual or the benefits have retained a link to final salary, it is important that you are receiving expert advice. Our client teams are experienced in providing the specialist advice required by open schemes and our independence enables us to find the solution that is right for your scheme.
The legal position is clear. GMP equalisation needs solving. Prerequisite steps are GMP reconciliation and GMP rectification and where these have not been completed they should be considered together with GMP equalisation as part of the overall GMP project.
Our experienced and specialist GMP unit coupled with scheme specific consultancy will help make your GMP project as painless as possible.
Our in-house Pensions Research Group provide you with independent commentary and exclusive insights from experts at the forefront of pensions.
We believe that good governance is critical. We can help you review processes, undertake governance reviews and assess trustee effectiveness and provide trustee training, virtually or face to face.
We recognise that things don't always run smoothly or go to plan. In these cases we are available to offer impartial and expert advice on a wide range of issues within pensions, as well as the insurance and investment sectors. Our experts have experience of working with legal and other advisers in providing advice or expert witness reports. We guarantee that our advice and reports will be clear, concise and free from any conflict.
We can also provide advice on the apportionment of life trusts, pension loss cases for individuals, divorce as well as other projects for companies and individuals which could benefit from actuarial expertise.
The PPF levy can be a significant expense but there are things trustees and employers can do. Our consultants have helped a large number of clients manage the size of their PPF levy.
The ongoing implications of changes to pensions taxation make retirement planning for executives increasingly complex. Our experienced executive pensions teams work with senior individuals and companies to help them understand the issues and options available to them and to develop retirement strategies.
Speak to our experts
To find out more about how our expertise can support your needs, please contact our team.
Get in touch with our team to discuss your needs.
DB Pensions Conference
Our DB conference is back for 2024, helping you navigate the challenging DB pensions landscape more effectively and uncover more opportunities.
Sign up
"Barnett Waddingham has an outstanding work ethos; always keen to meet clients’ specific challenges with a sensible, personal and pragmatic approach, which sets it apart in the consultancy space. It puts member outcomes at the heart of everything it does."
DB pension reforms
UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes face the prospect of two major proposed reforms, that look to radically change the funding and investment landscape.
Discover more
What our clients say
As an independent business, we are free to provide fresh ideas over a ‘one-size-fits-all’ mentality. As you will see from our latest surveys, our free thinking approach is delighting our clients.
See the feedbackSupporter of
