Casio Electronics Company Limited 1982 Retirement And Death Benefits · CAS-30822-S7H8

CAS-30822-S7H8

Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Mr Y

Scheme Casio Electronics Company Limited (1982) Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme (the Scheme)

Respondent Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited (Aviva)

Outcome

Complaint summary

Background information, including submissions from the parties

“The transfer amount is not guaranteed. You could receive more or less than the amount shown.” CAS-30822-S7H8

“The transfer value is the amount that would be paid if the plan were to be transferred to another provider. Please note that if the member were to decide to proceed with the transfer, the amount we would pay would be equal to the transfer value of the plan as at the date we receive all our requirements to process the transfer.”

“I’ve looked again at your original complaint and the events that took place between those dates.

We received the transfer request on 26 September 2018, and issued the discharge forms to the scheme trustee the next day. This is a statutory requirement.

The transfer couldn’t proceed until we received the signed forms back. These were received via email on 24 October 2018 and the transfer completed on 26 October 2018.

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• The Trustee maintained that it did not receive the transfer documents from Aviva until after Mr Y had received them on 18 October 2018.

• He had suffered a loss of £16,532 because of Aviva’s delay.

Adjudicator’s Opinion

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Mr Y did not accept the Adjudicator’s Opinion and in response made a number of comments. In summary they were:-

• As far as he could remember he did not call Aviva on the 12 October 2018, the day he received the email informing him that the forms had been sent out to his home address. He did not follow-up that email until 16 October 2018, as he allowed time for the post.

• On 16 October 2018, Aviva informed him that the documents had been sent to his home address, but if he had not received them it could email them to him. If the person to whom he spoke had checked Aviva’s system, it had to be assumed that it showed that the forms had been sent to him and not the Trustee. The first time anyone outside Aviva saw the transfer documents was when they were emailed to him on 16 October 2018.

• Aviva had not answered the Adjudicator’s question of whether verbally, or in writing, it had informed him before 12 October 2018 that the discharge forms would be sent to his home address. If Aviva had not done so, why did it email him on 12 October 2018 saying it had sent the transfer documents to his home address?

• He queried if there was a note or recording of the telephone conversation he had with Aviva on 26 September 2018, when he was informed the forms would be sent to his home address.

• The Adjudicator’s opinion was that the delay was not the reason the transfer payment was nearly £17,000 less than the original sum quoted. While this may be the case, without the delay, at best the original sum would have been transferred, at worst it would not have reduced by so much.

Aviva explained that:-

• On 12 October 2018, it received an internal telephone call from its Retirements Team to ask if the Trustee had returned the transfer documents, as Mr Y had queried this by telephone.

• It was unable to explain why Mr Y was told, in an email on 12 October 2018, that the transfer documents had been sent to his home address. However, “this one 4 CAS-30822-S7H8 piece of ambiguity seemed rather inconsequential to the complaint overall.” This appeared to be the only error, and a minor one during the month-long process.

• Mr Y seemed to be inferring that the entire process had taken from 26 September 2018 to 26 October 2018, because Aviva had informed him in an email that the transfer documents had been sent to his home address.

• Aviva correctly sent the transfer documents to the Trustee on 27 September 2018. The system showed the transfer documents were generated, addressed and sent correctly.

• Aviva had confirmed internally that it would make an exception and send the transfer documents directly to Mr Y, for Mr Y to get the Trustee to sign and return to Aviva. The transfer documents were sent directly to Mr Y on 16 October 2018, but were not returned until 26 October 2018, so could not be processed before then.

As Mr Y did not accept the Adjudicator’s Opinion, the complaint was passed to me to consider. I have noted Mr Y’s further comments but, I agree with the Adjudicator’s Opinion.

Ombudsman’s decision

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I do not uphold Mr Y’s complaint.

Anthony Arter

Pensions Ombudsman 3 November 2020

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