Open Market Options

Speeding up the time it takes payments to be made to pensioners

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) announced on 23 October 2008 details of its work with the UK’s leading annuity providers to speed up the time it takes for Open Market Option payments to be made to pensioners.

Fifteen providers, representing over 90 per cent of the annuities industry, have taken part in the initiative, which involved the creation of an electronic information exchange, the financial services e-commerce standards body. The objective of the service is to reduce the time taken to set up an annuity when changing providers and will become the industry benchmark.

The ABI said, ’The initiative marked a step change in the industry’s work to improve customer service around the Open Market Option. The ABI and the annuity providers involved are determined to make the annuity set-up process work better, and this service will reduce the time taken to transfer between providers.

’The ABI has already published new template wording for ”wake-up” letters sent to people who are approaching retirement. This will help make the options customers have at retirement clear and easy to understand.’

Levels and bases of and reliefs from taxation are subject to change and their value depends on the individual circumstances of the investor. The value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount invested.