Archive for the ‘Default Retirement Age’ Category
Is your advisor saving you this much?
One of our main roles as your advisor is making sure that you get excellent value for the money that you spend on benefits. When it comes to our fees and costs nothing’s different. It can be a bit more subjective when we look at the value that we bring. Some of that will depend on the feedback that comes from employees who are members of the arrangements.
A good example is a recent reply to one of our LinkedIn updates that we posted. It was highlighting some research that Standard Life had done. The post basically stated that 72% of over 55s don’t think they can live on £140 a week State Pension. I got a reply from Ian Gray who was a client I advised on his retirement. Ian wrote in reply:
"Thanks to you Steve I do not have to. Many thanks for all your past advice. – Ian Gray"
We have loads more examples from clients of this kind of feedback that demonstrates that we are adding value for clients (and as importantly their employees) in everything we do.
But what about value you can measure?
Great feedback is fantastic and it shows us that we are doing something right. However, it’s hard to quantify in pounds and pence the impact that we have had.
When it comes to looking at the arrangements we look after for clients we can get this kind of quantative feedback. Forgive us for a little bit of self-publicity in looking at a recent case study involving one of our new clients that we have picked up from a national advisory firm. It demonstrates the value of what we do and the benefit of being with a pro-active advisor.
Since taking over we have done a full benefit audit. We’ve checked that everything has been set up correctly and that all of the benefits have been reviewed regularly.
So far (and there is still work to do) we’ve saved the company £25,629! Yes £25,629. This isn’t a large employer – they’ve got just over 30 employees. Here’s how we did it:
|
Description |
Amount Saved |
|
Review of Group Travel Insurance Policy |
£200 |
|
Waiver of Premium Refund Claim – Employer |
£9,787 |
|
Waiver of Premium Refund Claim – Employee |
£4,638 |
|
Review of Medical Care Scheme |
£7,252 |
|
Review of Income Protection Scheme |
£3,752 |
|
Total |
£25,629 |
That works out at a saving of over £95 for each day that we’ve been working for them! A tremendous result for the company in such difficult economic times. We’d like to think we could continue at that rate but sadly it’s not going to happen.
It’s not just about saving money. During our audit we’ve unearthed a Waiver of Premium pension
claim that had never been submitted, a temporary absence clause on the Group Life Scheme that leaves the employer badly exposed and group risk arrangements that we needed to bring into line with the Default Retirement Age "carve out".
All in all, a good few months work. We’ve not only identified and released savings but also identified and mitigated a number of very real business risks.
If your advisor isn’t doing all that for you – isn’t it time you changed. Our example shows that the biggest in our industry aren’t always the best.
To arrange an initial meeting at our expense please contact us here. It may well be the best investment you ever make!
Steve Clark
All images courtesy of Flickr – Images_of_Money, woodleywonderworks. Photos8
Retirement, Sick Leave & TUPE
We must admit it’s getting really difficult to keep up to speed with all of the cases that are around in the UK and Europe on key issues that you need to be aware of.
To help make sense of it all DMH Stallard produce their Employment Law Radar. This publication covers cases that you should be aware of as well as consultations on the go. It’s like cramming for your homework before an exam. All the facts that you need to know in one place. We strongly recommend that you click here and have a look.
It may well be the best 15 minutes that you spend today!
There’s a quick “heads up” on forthcoming cases in the European Court of Justice and Supreme Court that may shed some light on Sick Leave and Holidays and Justification for Compulsory Retirement.
Steve Clark
Cause for concern in German DRA case?
It’s been rather quiet over the summer months in relation to developments on the various legislative issues that are likely to affect our clients’ employee benefit arrangements.
However, now that everyone is back from their holidays we’re beginning to see some interesting stuff appearing. The latest is in relation to the current grey area of the impact of the Default Retirement Age. Our friends at Mills & Reeve have issued one of their hr Law Live bulletins regarding a case heard by our old chums at the European Court of Justice.
You can click through to the original article here.
Although the judgement majors on the case of the German pilots being forced to retire at 60 there is one worrying aspect to it. For those of us regular flyers its worrying that air traffic safety doesn’t seem to be a legitimate reason to force a pilot to retire. The judgement seems to rest on the fact that safety considerations are not similar to the examples of legitimate aims listed in the original European Directive. These are things like employment policy, the labour market, or vocational training objectives.
As Mills & Reeve put it:
“(It) suggests a stricter reading of the Directive on this point than has been adopted by our domestic courts, which will be a worry for employers wishing to use a broad range of aims to justify age discrimination.”
It’s very likely that this is how Default Retirement Age legislation will evolve – by case law and precedent. It’s worth therefore keeping an eye on the stuff being issued by the UK and European courts when you’re framing your own policies.
For my part, my main concern is that the next time I get to the bottom of the aircraft steps at the airport there may be a stair lift installed for the pilot!
Steve Clark