The Pensions Master Plan

Our award-winning Master Trust solution cuts DB scheme costs while retaining your current trustees.

Benefits of our approach

Take advantage of our scale, with £1bn+ of assets transferred in

Reduce costs while improving member security

Retain control and maintain your current trustees

Trustee powers, member benefits and employer covenant unchanged

High quality advice from our Actuarial and Administration teams

Award-winning for innovation at the Pensions Age Awards

Low costs, high control

Running a DB pension scheme can be expensive. Especially when you consider that the cheapest rates are usually only available to larger, multi-billion-pound pension schemes.

The Pensions Master Plan gives schemes the opportunity to access otherwise out-of-reach low investment charges. Using our award-winning Master Trust solution, you’re free to cut costs and maximise value for you and your members.

Whether professional or lay, your trustees will remain in place and in control. If they ever need any assistance, our highly respected actuarial and administration teams are there to support.

What sets the Master Plan apart

Our Master Plan solution delivers a range of benefits.

Cut costs. Using economies of scale, we’re able to guarantee low investment charges. Currently, The Pensions Master Plan has £1bn+ of assets transferred in and is growing.

Keep control. You’ll be able to keep your existing trustees, including any professional trustee.

Have your employer covenant stay unchanged. Our straightforward transition process maintains the employer’s obligations to the scheme.

Maintain your trustee powers and member benefits unchanged. Your scheme’s balance of powers and benefits will stay the same.

Discover superior service quality. Our Actuarial and Administration teams provide impressive levels of support, offering schemes all the guidance they need to reach their goals.

A progressive approach

Since its inception seven years ago, Master Plan has been helping schemes achieve more with by reducing costs. In fact, our innovative structure allows schemes to reduce their costs by up to 30%. You retain control and have a scheme that is cheaper to run, all while benefitting from first class service.

Events

Clarity on Pensions: The route forward under the new government

An exclusive event for senior finance professionals of DB schemes valued between £5 million and £500 million, Clarity on Pensions is designed to prepare you for upcoming changes, and help you effectively manage your legacy liabilities through analysing the impact of the new Labour government and funding code on UK finance and pension strategies. We will provide you with practical proposals to effectively aid managing costs, mitigating risks, and reducing the time burden associated with DB pension schemes, while enhancing Free Cash Flow.

Learn more and register

FAQs

To reduce pension costs while retaining their current trustees.

Yes, our streamlined process makes transferring into the Master Plan simple. We suggest allowing six months for transition, although we can proceed more quickly depending on what’s right for your scheme.

The Master Plan has been running successfully for over 7 years and more than £1bn of assets have transferred in.

Isio provide the actuarial and administration services giving you cost effective, joined up services.

No, the Master Plan has clients with assets ranging from low millions to hundreds of millions. We can also accommodate schemes higher than this.

As an employer, you can be involved as little or as much as you like in the day-to-day running of your section as agreed with your section trustees.

Our approach is to provide a fixed core fee that covers all known BAU services that the section needs.

The scheme transfers into a new Master Plan section, ringfenced from all other sections. Our transfer process maintains the transferring scheme’s employer covenant, trustee powers and member benefits.

Yes, there is no change to who the sponsoring employer or their responsibility for the pension scheme covenant.

Yes, each Master Plan section has its own investment strategy, as decided by the section trustees in consultation with the employer.

You can find our DB Master Trust Self-Certificate on the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s website here: https://www.plsa.co.uk/Policy-and-Research/Topics/DB-Master-Trust-Self-Certificates