Norwich Union, the UK’s largest life assurer, is to offer “Nurture” - a stakeholder pension proposition designed to meet the needs of charities and the not for profit sector. This is available through City based pension advisers Regent.
Norwich Union, the UK's largest life assurer, is to offer "Nurture" - a stakeholder pension proposition designed to meet the needs of charities and the not for profit sector. This is available through City based pension advisers Regent.
There are over 1,000 employers in this sector employing more than 750,000 people. Activities range from caring and fund raising organisations to independent schools and housing associations. The nature of the type of employment in this sector means that a large majority of employees may previously have been excluded from access to a pension scheme prior to the launch of stakeholder.
Whilst there is a significant need for pension provision in this sector, employers are increasingly struggling to fund Defined Benefit schemes and many are no longer actively promoting them. With a 0.8% maximum charge, this new Defined Contribution arrangement through a stakeholder pension could prove the ideal answer for employers struggling to balance employee benefits with affordability.
Jerry Barnfield, director of pensions development at Norwich Union, commented, "We are pro-active in the development of the stakeholder market and in supporting the Government's high level objectives on pensions provision.
"It is anticipated that many of the organisations within the sector will need to designate a stakeholder pension and that the designation process will seem to be a complex procedure especially for smaller organisations. We have created a specially designed scheme to reflect the sector's specific needs and believe that this affordable proposition will enable employers to provide pension provision for previously non eligible workers within this sector."
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Notes to editors:
- The value of a pension investment can go down as well as up and is not guaranteed. Full written details are available on request.
- CGU plc and Norwich Union plc merged on 30 May 2000 to create CGNU plc, the UK's largest insurance group and one of the top-five insurers in Europe with substantial positions in other markets around the world, making it the world's sixth largest insurer based on gross worldwide premiums.
- CGNU's principal business activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance, with worldwide premium income and retail investment sales from ongoing business of over Ł27 billion and assets under management of more than Ł210 billion.
- From October 2000, the combined life and pensions, general insurance and retail fund management businesses in the UK operate under the Norwich Union brand, while the institutional investment business operates under the Morley Fund Management brand.
- Norwich Union's news releases are available on this website.
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