Gallagher’s Mark Pemberthy

Mark Pemberthy is a benefits guy, has been for decades and he’s one of the auto-enrolment guys who in has been an LBG financial adviser and since auto-enrolment got done has got into communicating benefits for clients who can afford Gallagher. I was going to use Mark’s word “committed” but I realised that that’s the word for “prepared to pay the bill for” and it’s clear that only big companies can pay the bills that come your way from employing Gallagher and Mark.

I thought that this podcast was about the value for money coming out of pensions but one of the first things I saw when I came out of hospital was an article that said we couldn’t afford our state pension

In truth there is no great value in pensions, if you hear Mark’s analysis of the Lifetime ISA as an alternative. This analysis suggests that young people are better off not saving for the later stages of their life and a right to a pension, they are better off with the flexibility of an ISA, even a cash ISA.

“Alan Pickering on why Trustees still matter” the week before, had a definition for pension’s VFM – pensions “giving you peace of mind in retirement”. It seems we have a difference between pensions as 100% security from 100% investment (John Hamilton’s view) to something that gets consumer thumbs up (the benefit of the moment).

I have no problem with Mark, a fine fellow, but I think he’s caught in what the Ukrainian PM calls “disinformation” and I suspect that for Russia read Gallagher.

Let’s not mistake what we are talking about. Pensions are regulated by the Pensions Regulator. We do not judge Value For Money by the value placed on propositions by benefit consultants. Despite Gallagher owning consultancies that cover all aspects of pensions from Buck to Redington, we are hearing the view of someone who reckons the popularity of cash ISAs good news.

The reality of Mark’s Podcast is a little nostalgic for the days of Morrisons warming up 120,000 staff with Alvin’s schmooze. I wrote a lot about it in 2014 when Alvin Hall was trotting out banality.

The comment beneath this picture is from the Evening Standard’s Anthony Hilton who lined these commentators up as promotors of nothing much good.

In those days, Morrisons – the supermarket – were offering a cash balance Defined Benefit. It didn’t pay a pension, was disliked and soon after was disbanded. It didn’t pay a pension and for all the promised blessing, it was a failure.

The simple things in life seem to have passed “benefits ” by. Mark tells us how he spent his time setting up executive schemes that allowed senior staff of the companies that paid the bills presented by HSBC that became JLT. It was a privilege not to be in a pension scheme.

The simple thing was to set up a pension scheme to pay a pension, then it was a cash balance plan, today it is a cash ISA.

There’s a lot more in this Pod in the same vein. The value for money measure for pensions should not be based on what has happened but what will happen says Mark. We should beef up IGCs so that they have the authority of trustees.  We should not have TPR and FCA as separate entities, the contract based and trust based DC schemes are the same and neither have much to do with pensions.

I hope that Mark, who is a sensible chap, can be taken out of the “disinformation space“. I am not sure the Podcast can offer us Alan Pickering last week and Mark Pemberthy this.

Benefits are one thing but pensions are another .