Trustees, scheme administrators and employers of workplace pension schemes

This website is for employers and trustees/scheme administrators of Zurich's UK work place pension schemes. This includes defined benefits and money purchase occupational schemes and group personal pension schemes. It is not intended for schemes who have a scheme number preceded by 'N' or an eight digit number commencing with 1 as these schemes have their own dedicated website.

For specific information relevant to your type of scheme, please go to the tabbed area below.

Schemes

Defined Contribution

Defined Benefit

Group Personal Pension Schemes

Defined Contribution Occupational Schemes

Managing your scheme

Your first port of call for managing your scheme should always be the Pensions Regulator's website at www.tpr.gov.uk. There is detailed guidance for trustees/scheme administrators to help you understand the role of scheme trustees and how to manage your pension scheme with a free online trustees toolkit, learning programme. There is also detailed guidance for employers.

We have produced a guide to help trustees understand their legal responsibilities. It provides a summary of legal responsibilities and directs to additional sources of information. This is held in the document library. The content of the guide is Zurich's interpretation of the rules and regulations. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information, the Company cannot accept responsibility for it. You may wish therefore to take legal advice on these matters.

Also in the document library are the rules that we may have recently written to you about. Please check your letter for the correct reference. As with any legal document, you should speak to your legal advisers to check that these rules are appropriate for your scheme.

When you are ready to adopt these new scheme rules please complete the resolution enclosed in your letter with the following details:

  • the name of the principal employer
  • the name of the scheme
  • the signature of the principal employer and date
  • the signature of the trustees and date.

Please return one copy to us using the address in the letter to confirm that the new rules have been adopted.

Record keeping

It is the trustees' responsibility to ensure that record keeping requirements are met. If we hold scheme records, we will write to trustees prior to the scheme renewal and either confirm we have all the information needed for the scheme members, or enclose an invalid/missing common data report which we ask the trustees to complete and return. We only provide limited conditional data. Please note the information we provided relates to records we hold and trustees will have additional records to consider. The Pensions Regulator is to ask trustees to report on record keeping in their scheme return to help improve standards. Please see TPR's record keeping quick guide in the document library.

Scheme rules booklets

Other scheme guides and documents

Defined Benefit Occupational Schemes

Managing your scheme

Zurich provides an insurance policy for your scheme. This means that we are not scheme administrators and do not provide administration services including record keeping for your scheme. We will pay out realisable values or benefits that have been secured under the policy but trustees and scheme administrators are responsible for ensuring the correct scheme benefits are paid to members.

Due to equalisation rules, your members may have benefit entitlements under our policy at both ages 60 and 65. We will provide retirement packs at age 65 to help support you but it is the responsibility of trustees /scheme administrators to claim benefits at the required time. Please remember the policy terms expect you to claim members’ benefits by age 75 at the latest.

Your first port of call for managing your scheme should always be the Pensions Regulator’s website at www.tpr.gov.uk. There is detailed guidance for trustees to help you understand the role of trustees and how to manage your pension scheme with a free online Trustees Toolkit, a learning programme. There is also detailed guidance for employers.

We can provide certain administration services. Please refer to the Defined benefits scheme adhoc charges document in the document library.

Defined Benefit Occupational Scheme newsletters

Document library

Group Personal Pension Schemes (GPPs)

Managing your scheme

In 2014 there were reviews carried out into improving the governance of money purchase pension schemes. Following these reviews the Financial Conduct Authority set out rules for committees to be established from April 2015 to act completely independent of a provider with primary duties to act in the interests of group personal pension scheme members to make an objective assessment that members are receiving value for money.

From March 2015, Zurich had an Independent Governance Committee (IGC) in place. This was replaced in July 2021 by a Governance Advisory Arrangement (GAA). You can find details about the work the IGC carried out with Zurich and the work the GAA intends to carry out in future at www.zurich.co.uk/about-us/governance-advisory-arrangement.

Zurich is the scheme administrator for your GPP and has administration responsibilities including discretion to pay lump sum death benefits unless members have put their plans into trust where we will pay to the trustees of the trust. To help Zurich consider members’ wishes, members who do not have an individual trust, should be reminded to complete and update their nomination of beneficiary forms. You can obtain these by asking your usual Zurich contact.

As the sponsoring employer you have a responsibility to manage your scheme and work with your adviser to ensure it meets your requirements and provides good outcomes for your members. You also have certain responsibilities on communicating with your members.

Group Personal Pension Scheme newsletters

Useful links

Find a financial adviser

We can't give you advice but we can help you find a financial adviser and give you some hints on how to prepare for your first visit:

If you don't currently have a financial adviser, you can find one near you at:

Or you can read reviews of financial advisers at: