In our previous blog in this series, I outlined the key steps and actions in how to get your data in good shape. Having squeaky clean data at a single point in time is very useful for getting accurate risk transfer pricing, or other one-off activity, but without careful attention your data quality begins to degrade.
As with any kind of housekeeping, it’s better to do things “little and often” than wait for problems to build up.
This blog will talk about some of the things we do with our clients to keep on top of data quality, so that it’s ready for when they need it.
The foundation of good data is knowing who is in your pension scheme and being able to locate them. The majority of pension schemes that we look after have a regular programme of mortality screening on their pensioner population, and many schemes apply a similar process to their deferred group. We work with a number of professional tracing agencies to offer this as a highly cost-efficient service. The savings in liability costs for simply locating one unnotified death of a deferred member can pay for the costs of the exercise many times over.
We offer members access to their pension information through our smartphone app and online member portal. What this means is that members can log in and make changes to their data at a time that is convenient to them – in the same way they would update details in their online banking. We can use the same system to prompt members to log in and review core data items that may be missing – for example their marital status. All through the process we are helping members engage with us in the way that suits them, as well as helping meet our clients’ data goals.
We believe in being transparent with our clients around data quality and we practice what we preach by showing Trustees their real-time data quality scores through our Mantle system. We find this allows our clients to build a much better understanding of their scheme’s data quality picture and avoids any nasty surprises. It also helps when working with employers to demonstrate the type of information that may be held on member’s employment records, but which is missing on the pension scheme’s records.
We use a single system for all pensions administration and actuarial work – this means that there is only a single source to keep up to date and removes the risk inherent in transferring data around different systems. It also reduces costs incurred through having to manipulate data to fit different systems.
Being able to work in true partnership with our clients around maintaining data quality is all part of what we feel good governance looks like for defined benefit pension schemes. This is even more critical when working through a scheme’s endgame – where locking in gains on data quality should go hand in hand with locking in gains on your investments.