Regulator rules out mortality guidance
UK - Pensions regulator chairman David Norgrove has ruled out providing guidance on the issue of mortality assumptions.
Speaking at the National Association of Pension Fund (NAPF) annual conference in Edinburgh yesterday, Norgrove said that while he recognised that mortality assumptions affected the decisions pension funds made,
it was not up to the regulator to make decisions which would be better left to actuaries.
“If we were to come up with a standard then it would probably be wrong anyway,” he said. ‘’We are
not equipped to come up with or give guidance on either mortality or discount rates.”
On the issue of submissions by schemes to the regulator, he said that most of those received so far had been of a high quality. He added when schemes had triggered further investigation, it had mostly been on technical issues rather than on recovery plans.
Norgrove went on to the urge schemes to get their submissions in as early as possible.
He also warned trustees not to be too over aggressive when it came to dealing with plan spanners and coming up with recovery plans.
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