First Actuarial can help trustees meet their compliance duties in a cost-effective way.

We can take care of regulatory compliance, helping trustees manage their numerous governance challenges and make informed decisions quickly.

We also give clients access to our online Client Hub. This provides all the tools and information trustees need to comply with the general code.

Trustees using the Client Hub can:

• Store all scheme governance material together in a secure, online portal
• Carry out a gap analysis to identify additional measures required
• Keep track of which policies and processes help them meet specific requirements of the code
• Set due dates for reviewing policies and processes at the required frequency
• Use a simple risk assessment and recording tool and export the results for their ORA.

Our experienced consultants and scheme secretaries can also prepare a draft ORA, which the trustees’ risk management function can review and approve.

And on an ongoing basis, we’ll keep track of regulatory duties and issues that trustees may miss, especially if their day-to-day work lies outside pensions.

Our scheme secretaries make sure everything is in place that trustees need by:

• Helping to meet the scheme’s key milestones
• Managing projects, including scheme wind-ups, as required
• Liaising with third parties such as accountants, scheme auditors and other advisers
• Providing guidance on regulatory documentation
• Taking care of meeting preparation, minuting and actions.

We’ll spot issues and regulatory duties that trustees may miss, especially if their day-to-day work lies outside pensions.

We understand the need for rapid and responsive action together with clear and relevant reporting – and can deliver everything you need at very short notice.

We can carry out a speedy and affordable review to give you a broad understanding of the potential impact of pensions at an early stage. You can then restructure or fine-tune the deal on an informed basis. We have systems and processes in place to get meaningful reports to our clients as quickly as possible.

We can also help you with more in-depth due diligence to uncover any hidden risks and help you negotiate a suitable pensions sale agreement.

Whatever you ask us to do, we’ll carry out our work quickly and accurately. By giving you the information and support you need, when you need it, we’ll free you up to focus on other areas of the deal that are keeping you awake at night.

First Actuarial offers a tailored service to identify the right risk transfer solution for your organisation’s needs. Our specialist risk transfer team advises clients on both buy-outs and buy-ins and we work with all the insurers in the market.

For many employers, the cost of buy-out can seem prohibitive.

We understand what drives insurers’ costs, and we’ll set out the steps you can take to make savings. For example, we can estimate the cost of securing your liabilities against your scheme’s asset value and monitor it over time. This makes it easier to spot attractive and suitable risk transfer opportunities as soon as they arise.

Full buy-out is not always the answer. We use our knowledge of insurers and their costs to identify the approach that will deliver the best value for money.

Where the cost of a buy-out turns out to be prohibitive, we will help you consider the alternatives.

We never forget how worrying a buy-out can be for scheme members, as pension provision moves to an unfamiliar insurer. We can take their anxieties away by providing clear and comprehensive information at every stage.

We can advise on the range of options available to you when managing Defined Benefit scheme liabilities.

We’ll listen to your workforce and take full account of their perspectives, adding and discarding options accordingly, always balancing the needs of your members with your own objectives.

We offer a comprehensive investment service to help employers shape their trustees’ investment decisions.

A typical project may involve:

• Helping the employer agree a long-term goal for the scheme
• Reviewing investment strategy – making sure the current or proposed strategy aligns with long-term plans
• Suggesting improvements to trustee strategies – either to reduce risk, increase return or make cost savings
• Attending a meeting to help the employer agree a new investment strategy with the trustees.

Alternatively, we can help employers monitor investment performance, whether trustees use one Fiduciary Manager or several investment managers.

We’ll make sure that trustees give due consideration to your objectives, and that you get a say in investment decision-making.

We provide high quality actuarial services to help employers understand the level of prudence that trustees are applying to the valuation. This puts you in a stronger position to challenge them, if necessary.

Our assessment can result in a lower deficit, or even a surplus, with reduced or no employer contributions. This isn’t always the case, but once we’ve evaluated the assumptions your trustees are proposing, you’ll know whether there’s room for further negotiation.

We understand how important it is to work quickly and accurately, so you get the information you need at the right time.

Once we’ve made sure the assumptions are reasonable, we can provide a range of options to help reduce your contributions, in ways that are acceptable to both you and the trustees.

We provide high quality pension cost accounting services at a reasonable fee. We produce our calculations quickly and accurately, making sure you get the information you need, when you need it.

We deliver a bespoke service to fit individual client needs. Some clients need a no-fuss compliance service, with timely and accurate delivery for a competitive fixed fee.

Others require a fuller service with initial estimates, early delivery of preliminary results, meetings to agree assumptions, and the provision of future projections.

We can help with whatever you need.

Our benefit review highlights potential problems, and sets out possible changes along with a process to put them in place. We draw on our extensive experience to work out what is feasible, and how easy or difficult any changes will be.

Where substantial changes are required, we can provide a full range of options, including cash balance, Collective Defined Contribution and Defined Contribution plans. We have knowledge and experience of all types of pension scheme and can guide you to the right scheme type or design for your needs.

We’ll then help you get from your current position to the new arrangement cost-effectively, and with minimum disruption.

Discover the key areas employers need to discuss with scheme trustees.

Read our Finance Director’s guide to DB scheme actuarial valuation.

First Actuarial offers a tailored service to identify the right risk transfer solution for your scheme. Our specialist risk transfer team advises clients on both buy-outs and buy-ins, and we work with all the insurers in the market.

We use our extensive experience to help you find a solution that will meet all your needs.

We can estimate the cost of securing your liabilities and track that for you over time. And through our Client Hub, you can monitor your scheme’s funding level on a daily basis. This makes it easier to spot attractive and suitable risk transfer opportunities as soon as they arise.

We never forget how worrying a buy-out can be for scheme members, as pension provision moves to an unfamiliar insurer. We can take their anxieties away by providing clear and comprehensive information at every stage.

For many schemes full buy-out is not the answer. We use our knowledge of insurers and their costs to identify the approach that will deliver the best value for money.

Where the immediate cost of a buy-out turns out to be prohibitive, we will draw on our knowledge of insurer costs and work with you to create a structured plan.

First Actuarial provides clear, understandable information to members, in our day-to-day administration work or as part of an exercise to improve understanding among members.

We run simple communication projects that include:

• Scheme websites
• Online benefit calculators or modellers
• Total reward statements
• Scheme booklets
• Newsletters.

We also offer an independent financial education service, working with clients to improve staff wellbeing, with a combination of one-to-one sessions, presentations, webinars and online or mobile tools.

We can give members and trustees access to a simple website where they’ll find all the information they need about their scheme.

Members can access:

• Booklets
• Announcements
• Newsletters
• Personal data
• Benefit modellers
• Quotations issued by the pension department.

Trustees can access:

• Trust deeds and rules
• Meeting packs and minutes
• Key actuarial and legal advice
• Administration reports
• Specialist software tools and customised scheme information on our Client Hub.

In short, our websites provide secure access to all the information that members or trustees will need.

We have developed a strong culture of clear communication, and our staff are skilled at simplifying complex issues with trustees, employers and members. We all go out of our way to make sure members understand our guidance and information.

Our groundbreaking financial wellbeing service has been honed through large-scale projects with FTSE 100 clients. We bring that expertise to large and small clients cost-effectively, and we have transferred those skills across our teams.

Clients and members tell us we explain things well.

We offer a comprehensive investment service to help our clients with their investment decisions.

A typical project may involve:

• Investment strategy advice – helping trustees make informed investment decisions.
• Fund manager selection – based on research by our client-facing consultants and up-to-date supplier lists covering a full range of asset classes.
• Transition services – managing changes to investment strategy.
• Monitoring and dynamic de-risking – watching investments and liabilities, and choosing the right time to switch investments to reduce risks.

Our administration services are integrated with our other pension services, making us quick and efficient at everything we do.

We employ skilled staff and our technology is modern and robust, so we’re strangers to the legacy system problems that slow other providers down.

At First Actuarial, the people who answer the phone are the same ones who do the administration work. They’re always at hand to answer your members’ questions. That’s how we build trust with scheme members – this can prove invaluable when they’re faced with important financial decisions.

Both trustees and members notice that we genuinely care about the members and always put them first.

We are highly skilled at explaining our calculations and the options available in the most effective ways.

We have developed innovative software tools to support our Scheme Actuary work:

• Valuation Viewer helps trustees of Defined Benefit schemes understand the potential impact of each assumption on actuarial calculations. That way they can focus on the assumptions that matter, and make informed decisions.
• firstview keeps trustees up to date with changes to the funding of their scheme, so there are no unwelcome surprises at valuation time.

Our Scheme Actuaries are not afraid to challenge conventional approaches, where they think it right and judge it to be in the client’s best interest. They take full account of legislation, and their in-depth industry knowledge means that they understand The Pensions Regulator’s requirements.