Administration Reviews

Administration reviews

Restoring quality and confidence

Whether you have chosen to administer your pension scheme in-house or to outsource the administration to a Third Party Administrator (TPA), there comes a time when you need to review the decisions you have made.  Is this still the right strategy for the company?  Is the basic strategy still appropriate?  And if you are administering your pension scheme in-house, is the team structure right and are you making the best use of technology?  For those that have outsourced the administration, is the TPA working to an acceptable standard?

What options are open to you?

At Pi we work with companies and trustees to review their objectives and help them achieve their goals.  Our total independence, ability to understand client needs and to match those needs with real/objective solutions, and our extensive knowledge of both in-house and TPA administration, ideally places us to perform this role.

Our approach includes:

• assessment of your objectives and current situation
• operational review of your in-house or third party administration provision including:
  • strategy, people, systems, costs, processes
  • identification of problems, proposal of solutions and advice on implications of making change
• where required, assistance in:
  • redefining/negotiating TPA service standards
  • mentoring of in-house team
  • creation/review of job descriptions
• clear and comprehensive report on all findings
• seamless transition to a new TPA if required – Pi has extensive experience in this area (see Procurement and Outsourcing)

The result – improved current service delivery and member confidence!

Project Example - Hal

Any dissatisfaction with service delivery should not immediately lead to change to another third part administrator (TPA). The important issue is to understand were things can be improved and to strengthen the existing relationships if that is possible.

We were approached by the company after a recommendation by the independent trustee on their trustee board.  They had moved administration to a new TPA because of perceived failings in the service delivery from their previous administrator, however, despite a good start they were again experiencing problems.

We met with the client to understand their issues and also define the way that they communicated with the TPA.  We then held an on-site visit with the TPA focussing on key work areas that were essential to improve the service delivery, including:

• Client management
• The level of automation
• Inter-team working methodology
• Work tracking
• Issues log
• Projects

From this visit we developed a log of issues that were then discussed with all the parties and we created an effective strategy for moving forward with all parties agreeing on the priorities for improvement.  Ownership of the actions within the TPA was clear with individuals being named within the strategy and Pi Consulting monitoring the progress of actions and providing assistance as appropriate.  Once all actions were completed, Pi performed a final review and formally signed off the project.  The result is a stronger working relationship between the client and the TPA and an improved service delivery to the members.