Pilots National Pension Fund · CAS-55231-T8P5

CAS-55231-T8P5

Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Mr L

Scheme Pilots' National Pension Fund (the Fund)

Respondents PNPF Trust Company Limited (the Trustee)

Capita

Outcome

Complaint summary

Background information, including submissions from the parties

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On 9 November 2019, Mr L sent an email to Capita and said he had contacted several local financial advisers to gain advice and all four of them commented on how low the September 2019 CETV was. This was concerning and it was as if the Trustee was deliberately stopping people from transferring their money.

On 19 November 2019, Capita sent an email to Mr L and said it had now received an explanation regarding the September 2019 CETV. This had been provided by the Actuary for Mr L’s independent financial adviser (IFA):-

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Mr L’s position

An apology was not an acceptable outcome as £282,248 of his life savings were being withheld.

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Adjudicator’s Opinion

The Trustee agreed that the May 2018 CETV illustration provided to Mr L was incorrect but said this resulted from human error and was not due to the application of the early retirement factor. There was no dispute that Mr L was provided with incorrect information so there was no doubt that an error occurred, and Mr L was disadvantaged as a result.

In this case, the provision of incorrect information amounted to maladministration. As maladministration had occurred, the normal course of action would be, as far as possible, to put Mr L back in the position he would have been in had the error not occurred. This did not, however, mean that the Trustee should pay Mr L a level of benefit to which he was not entitled. For the complaint to succeed it would need to be reasonable for Mr L to have relied on the misinformation and having done so, to have suffered financial detriment as a result.

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Mr L did not accept the Adjudicator’s Opinion and the complaint was passed to me to consider. Mr L provided his further comments which are:-

The award of £500 did not recognise the distress and inconvenience which he had suffered. The matter had gone on since 2019 and he had lost five years of his life in trying to resolve this issue.

His financial loss was £627,714. The £500 offered was only a fraction of this amount and could only be classed as an insulting offer.

I have considered Mr L’s further comments, but they do not change the outcome, I agree with the Adjudicator’s Opinion.

Ombudsman’s decision

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I partly uphold Mr L’s complaint.

Directions

Anthony Arter CBE

Deputy Pensions Ombudsman 16 May 2024

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