The intermediary found 68 per cent of the 200 employers it surveyed will need to review their scheme following the imposition of new minimum standards that include the charge cap, the ban on active member discounts and the removal of commission on auto-enrolment schemes.
These new requirements apply to both new and existing schemes being used for Auto-Enrolment, with compliance on some issues required by April 2015.
The research, carried out between May and June this year, also identified a further 16 that had already undertaken such a review.
Jelf Employee Benefits head of benefits strategy Steve Herbert says: “It is a genuine concern that so many employers now expect to review their pension scheme as a direct result of this latest twist in the AE story.
“Whilst we have no issues with the concept of minimum standards in pension schemes, we do believe that the changes announced will present many employers, including those that believed they had already staged successfully, with real challenges to comply within the timelines set.”
“We welcome recent announcements by some pension providers regarding their blanket proposals for an entire book of business to meet these new minimum standards. Yet despite this, there are still likely to be a significant number of employers who will have to make key changes to their pension scheme in the next 12 months. This is a time consuming and complicated process, and one that ideally requires professional assistance from the industry to achieve the best results. We would urge employers to review their selected AE pension scheme now to ensure full and continued compliance.”
