FAQs

Pension scams can take many different forms. 

Often they involve tempting people into transferring their pension out of their pension plan to allow early access to their funds, or to exploit an investment opportunity with ‘guaranteed’ returns.

You should be wary of any such offer you may receive as it may be unlawful and you could face unauthorised tax charges.

Pension scammers may:

• try to obtain personal information about you (either illegally or by convincing you to provide it),
• apply pressure for you to make a quick decision (such as to transfer out),
• make claims that seem ‘too good to be true’,
• try to flatter you into making a bad decision, and/or
• downplay the risk associated with the decision.

You can find out more about pension scams at www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart.

Contact the Administrators by email, phone or post. See the Contacts page for details.

This is the form the Trustee uses to help decide who should receive any lump sum death benefits that are payable in the event of your death. 

If you have never completed an Expression of Wish form, or if your circumstances have changed since you last submitted a form, please complete a new form.

We continue to hold a record of paper expressions that have previously been submitted. However, we recommend reviewing and updating your details to ensure your wishes are accurately reflected.

Where can I complete an Expression of Wish form?
You can complete a new Expression of Wish form on the PensionLine website. 

Go to the My Pension page, choose the relevant PensionLine link and log in. 

From there you can submit your new Expression of Wish form electronically.

You can complete a new Expression of Wish form on the PensionLine website. 

Go to the My Pension page, choose the relevant PensionLine link and log in. 

From there you can submit your new Expression of Wish form electronically.

You need to complete the online enrolment process before you can access your online account. You will have received an enrolment ID separately. Visit the My Pension page for more information.

The Scheme will pay for eligible members to receive one round of retirement advice from our appointed firm of independent financial advisers (IFAs).

We want you to make the right retirement choices for your circumstances, so have appointed Origen Financial Services Limited (Origen), a long-standing, regulated, national firm of IFAs. 

We’ve been through a rigorous process to select Origen as our appointed IFA firm. Their advisers have been fully trained on the Schemes and the retirement options available to you, so they’re well-placed to help you make informed decisions.

If you’re eligible, the Scheme will pay for you to receive one round of impartial financial advice from Origen. 

With Origen, you’ll receive a personal recommendation from an experienced IFA who is an expert on retirement advice – at no cost to you and with no obligation. 

This is a really valuable benefit – typically, impartial financial advice can cost £3,000 or more. 

If you don’t want to use Origen and you don’t have an appointed IFA, there are organisations that can help you find one. See the Contacts page for details.

You’re eligible for one round of paid-for financial advice from Origen if:

• you haven’t yet retired, and 
• you’re age 55 or over (or you’re over your Normal Minimum Pension age), and
• you live in the UK.

The terms of the offer for paid-for impartial financial advice from Origen are subject to change and will be kept under review. 

The Trustee reserves the right to withdraw the offer at any time. We’ll let you know if this happens.

Your benefits in the Scheme may be one of your most significant financial assets. 

Taking your benefits from the Scheme is a one-time only transaction – you can’t revisit the decision.
 
It’s therefore important that you make a fully informed decision that’s right for your personal circumstances. Origen can help you to do this.

Yes, their advisers are qualified to the standard required by the Financial Conduct Authority to be able to advise on the full range of retirement options.

Origen is completely independent of the Company and the Scheme.

No, Origen’s fees for providing one round of advice – which the Scheme will cover – are the same regardless of how and when you decide to take your benefits.

Yes, if you’re not eligible for one round of paid-for advice from Origen, you can still get advice from them, and we’ve negotiated discounted rates for doing so.

You’d need to meet the cost of the advice yourself, but this would be much cheaper than the rates you’d be quoted in the open market. 

Origen will confirm the fees if and when you engage with them.

In most cases, this is likely to be after you receive (or request) a retirement quotation. 
This will either be: 

• in the run-up to your Normal Retirement Age, or 
• if you want to consider early retirement, at any time from the Normal Minimum Pension age (currently age 55 but rising to age 57 from 6 April 2028).

Whenever you plan to seriously consider retirement, we recommend you contact Origen soon after you receive your retirement pack – to give yourself enough time to go through the advice process, make a decision and submit the relevant forms within the guarantee period of your quotation.

We’d also encourage you to make use of the wider support available, such as the retirement options modelling tool prior to speaking to Origen. See ‘The Scheme’ for more details.

The Trustee will only pay for one round of retirement advice from Origen. If you wish you use a different IFA firm, you will need to meet the cost of this.

You can use a different financial adviser if you want to, provided they’re authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

If you don’t want to use Origen and you don’t have an appointed IFA, there are organisations that can help you find one. 

See the Contacts page for details.

Your chosen adviser will need to provide us with the following evidence:

• that the advice they give you is specific to the retirement option you choose,
• that they’re authorised to give regulated advice,
• the reference number of the IFA or firm of IFAs, and
• your name and your Scheme’s name.

You should check they can provide you with these details before you appoint anyone.

Your Scheme pension might need to change because we need to address an inequality relating to certain historic benefits in the Scheme, following the outcome of a High Court legal case. This relates to Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP).

Your Scheme pension is made up of different parts, based on when you built up your pension. Guaranteed Minimum Pension, or GMP, is one part.

GMP is linked to when there were two parts to the State Pension arrangement – the Basic State Pension and the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS, which later became the State Second Pension).

Workplace pension schemes had the option to ‘contract out’ of the State Second Pension. This resulted in National Insurance savings for the employer and its members, and most schemes like ours took advantage of this option.

In exchange, the Scheme had to promise to pay members at least as much pension as they would have received from the SERPS.

This is the part of your Scheme pension that is known as GMP. 

GMP was earned between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 1997, so if you were building up benefits in the Scheme during this time, some of your Scheme pension may be GMP. The amount of GMP, and the way it must be increased in payment, is set by legislation.

GMPs are different between most men and women because the State Pension Age used to be different for men and women. As a result, men and women built up GMPs at different rates and GMPs are payable at different dates.

Pension benefits have generally had to be equal for men and women since 17 May 1990.

A legal ruling by the European Court of Justice in 1990, known as the ‘Barber case’, confirmed that the right to equal pay for men and women applied to occupational pension schemes. However, the way the UK Governments treated GMPs was not adjusted in line with this. As a result, GMPs remain unequal in
some cases.

The issue of GMPs within pension benefits has only been addressed recently, following a separate High Court ruling.

Three members of the Lloyds Banking Group’s pension schemes claimed discrimination on the basis that their GMPs were not equal to the GMPs of members of the opposite sex and this meant that their overall pension was not equal either. The High Court ruled in the members’ favour in October 2018.

The result of this ruling is that all affected pension schemes are legally required to address this inequality. This is commonly known in the pensions industry as ‘GMP equalisation’. 

Does the High Court case ruling affect me?
Pensions earned between 17 May 1990 and 5 April 1997 must be equalised for the effect of unequal GMPs. 

Only members (or their dependants) with pension built up over this period may be affected. 

You may be affected by GMP equalisation even if you don’t have any GMP. 

The ruling affects men and women and both pensioners and members who have yet to draw their pension.

GMPs earned before 1990 are not covered by the court ruling and do not need to be equalised. Equally, if you joined the Scheme after 5 April 1997, your benefits will not be affected.

We are carrying out this complex exercise in phases.

GMP equalisation has been completed for many members of both DB Schemes, so you may have received communications confirming any impact on your pension.

For other members, we are still working to complete GMP equalisation. You can be assured that if you have not received information about it and your pension is affected, we will write to you individually as soon as possible,

We expect many members to see little or no increase in the value of their benefits. 

There are a few reasons for this:

• GMP often only makes up a small part of an individual's pension, so the amounts involved in addressing any inequality are likely to be small.
• Many members will receive no increase as they’ve not been disadvantaged by the way their benefits have been treated.
• Some members won't have benefits built up within the Scheme between 17 May 1990 and 5 April 1997.

Please be assured that if your benefits are affected by GMP equalisation, we will write to you with full details.

The Scheme’s main purpose is to provide you with a pension when you retire. This will be calculated in different ways for different periods of service with MSD. 

The key fact is that the pension is a defined amount at your date of leaving which will not reduce and will be payable for life. 

You can find details of your yearly pension amount on PensionLine from My Pension. 

Depending on your personal circumstances, a pension will also be paid to your spouse or dependant following your death. 

As an alternative, you have the option to take a transfer value (before you take your benefits) to an alternative registered pension arrangement (sometimes known as a Cash Equivalent Transfer Value). 

To do this you will, usually, need to take independent financial advice to check that it is in your interests to swap the pension that you would get from the Scheme for different benefits elsewhere.

The principles underlying how the amount available to you as a transfer value is calculated are set out in legislation. 

The transfer value payable has to represent the expected cost to the Scheme of providing you with the benefits that are payable to you from the Scheme.

To calculate this amount, a number of assumptions are made about the future, as this affects the amount of money needed to provide the pension payable to you from the Scheme. 

These include:

• the investment return which will be achieved in the future on the Scheme’s assets,
• how long you, and your dependants, are likely to live, and
• future increases to your pension through either salary increase because of inflation.

The principles for setting these assumptions are made by the Trustee having taken professional actuarial advice and are set following discussions and agreement with the Company.

The principles adopted are consistent across the whole membership of the Scheme. Nevertheless, every member’s transfer value is different. This is because, as well as depending on the assumptions noted above, the transfer value will reflect other factors such as your age, service, and the amount of your pension. 

The impact of changes to assumptions will therefore be different for each member but they will be applied consistently for all members of the Scheme. 

If you have a question not covered by the questions here, contact the Administrators - see the Contacts page.

The Aon MasterTrust is a workplace pension scheme that MSD uses to help you save for your retirement. It is managed by professional trustees who are independent of MSD, ensuring your pension is looked after in your best interests. 

All employees are automatically enrolled into the Aon MasterTrust on joining MSD. 

You will have received information about this when you joined MSD.

You can log into your Aon MasterTrust account by selecting the link below.

Log in to your Aon MasterTrust account