Pension company misled me

Hi, about ten years ago, I postponed my wedding and took redundancy. A major factor in these decisions was a glossy "bespoke" brochure supplied to me that stated unambiguously that should I marry before I retire and then die, my wife would get half my pension. I discovered two years ago that the small print of the pension rules state that I .ust be married before I left the company. I've complained to the central bank, the pensions ombudsman and FSO. Only now is the FSO is investigating (CB and PA didn't want to know). Now I'm been offered 3.5k as "go away" money and I'm debating this as the loss to my wife is worth 55k. My fear is the FSO will say what the PA said, basically that a pension company are allowed mislead you and that the pension rules are sacroscant. Are there any cases out there similar to mine in which a pension company supplied false information on benefits and were punished/compensation offered?

mitchell said:

A major factor in these decisions was a glossy "bespoke" brochure supplied to me that stated unambiguously that should I marry before I retire and then die, my wife would get half my pension. I discovered two years ago that the small print of the pension rules state that I .ust be married before I left the company.

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Do you have copies of these conflicting documents?

mitchell said:

Only now is the FSO is investigating (CB and PA didn't want to know). Now I'm been offered 3.5k as "go away" money

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You mean that the FSPO investigation is ongoing but in the meantime the pension company have approached you with this offer? That seems odd if, in order to get to the FSPO in the first place, the pension company would have had to issue you with a final response letter?

mitchell said:

Are there any cases out there similar to mine in which a pension company supplied false information on benefits and were punished/compensation offered?

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Have you checked here for previous FSPO decisions?

I'm trying to figure out how it impacted your decision not to get married 10 years ago ? Even if you can prove something was mis-represented to you, its difficult to establish or see a causal link between your wifes potential loss and what was mis-represented to you. The pension trust deed is the bible and any other handbook or brochure is not relevant when it comes to the rules.

I don’t follow. You postponed your wedding until after you left the company? But how is that related to the pension investment, is that where you put your redundancy money?

Or are you talking about the company scheme you were already in and obviously left when you left the company? And believed that your wife would be covered anyway even if the marriage was after you left the scheme.

And how is the 55k calculated?

mitchell said:

My fear is the FSO will say what the PA said, basically that a pension company are allowed mislead you and that the pension rules are sacroscant.

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My fear is that it won't!

I suspect that even the (possibly) misleading glossy brochure would have included some sort of disclaimer to the effect that it wasn't a legally binding document.

Pension miss selling is a tough bar.

And I speak as someone who was working in the UK in the 1980s and all that happened then, it took years to unravel all that. And several large investigations by lawyers and financial experts. I was happy to participate in that and submitted claims etc and it was all sorted out for all victims. I don’t know anyone who took a solo claim but I guess someone started the ball rolling there.

There are several companies offering support for making a claim, I assume they are not cheap. But you’ve already made the complaint so half the job is done I guess. Others here might be more experienced.

Thanks for all the replies, first I will answer Clubman.
Do you have copies of these conflicting documents? I do
mitchell said:

That seems odd if, in order to get to the FSPO in the first place, the pension company would have had to issue you with a final response letter?

Usually you are correct but if there is a long delay, they will intervene, in my case over a year and a half.

Have you checked here for previous FSPO decisions?
Good idea, I checked and there is one similar case study in which the person got. 500 euro compensation

Annieindublin , basically because I knew I was going to be made redundant, I put my life on hold including my forthcoming marriage. If I'd known my pension would have been effected, I would have married before leaving the company. My pension is with 110k so she would be entitled to half it if I died

Marsupial , I checked and no disclaimer

Joeroberts so u are saying that a pension company can open mislead. The pensions authority said the same thing basically when I complained to them

That says married before retiring. Seems pretty clear.

But is there no disclaimer saying you need to read the scheme rules?

I checked mine, must be married while in the scheme.

mitchell said:

Joeroberts so u are saying that a pension company can open mislead

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I would say it was just a typo. They had nothing to gain by "misleading" you. And it did not influence you in joining the scheme.

I just noticed the attachment posted. It's from your annual statement rather than a "glossy brochure" I think ? Wording is maybe a bit clumsy and maybe open to intrrpretation. How did you arrive at a loss of 55k. Is this based on the current transfer value and if so who calculated what it would be with a dependent pension ?

Annieindublin That says married before retiring. Seems pretty clear

Thank you, yes it does and not "married before leaving the company" as they claimed! They would tell you black is white if they thought they'd get away with it

Joeroberts it's a fairly detailed typo and even if it was the pension company claim they did not make any errors and my "interpretation" is incorrect. It was DB scheme so I was automatically signed up for it. It was glossy brochure given to us before we took redundancy. Subsequent statements received 5 years later was a basic 2 pager

Joeroberts, if I died my wife gets half my pension. Full pension is currently worth 110k so I halved it

mitchell said:

My pension is with 110k so she would be entitled to half it if I died

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mitchell said:

Now I'm been offered 3.5k as "go away" money and I'm debating this as the loss to my wife is worth 55k

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Your maths are well out here. Your benefit from the pension is far greater than your wife's would be. You would need an actuary to calculate it but just to demonstrate the difference, assume you live for 20 years after retirement and your wife survives you by 10 years. She would get 20% of the overall benefit.

Thanks llgon, it was a rough guess admittedly. I suppose I don't expect myself to live to retirement. 20% of 110 k is 22k so been offered 3.5k compo is still way off

This isn't a mis-selling case because, as pointed out, the OP joined the pension scheme before he was given the impression that he could leave service, then marry, and still qualify for a spouse's pension; therefore this played no role in his becoming a member of the scheme.

What it did do was lead him to decide to defer his marriage. His claim is for negligent misrepresentation — "you carelessly gave me this impression; I accepted it in good faith and acted on the basis of it in a way that I wouldn't have, if you hadn't misled me; that action has cost me money."

If he were to fight this case, there'd be an evidential issue about proving that the misrepresentation caused the deferral. Was it a case that the church was booked, the reception was booked, the honeymoon was booked, and they were all deferred when the OP was told about his impending redundancy? Or that he and his intended to marry soon, but had no definite commitement, and "soon" just got extended a bit? The OP doesn't say, and I don't think we need to know; it's just that this would be a big issue if the matter went legal.

The other big issue is the fact that the decision the OP made had, in itself, nothing to do with pensions. It's one thing to hold a pension company responsible for a misrepresention that lead you to buy their product, or to exercise your options under the product in a particular way; it's quite another to hold it responsible for life decisions like marrying — decisions that they have no way of knowing that you are even contemplating, at the time when they are (carelessly) explaining the scheme rules to you.

A third issue is one that has already been pointed to — you have to look at the totality of the information that was given to the OP. The extract the OP has given above certainly looks like a very clear misrepresentation. Anybody reading that would certainly think that a clear distiction was made between (a) leaving service and (b) retirement, a later event, and that if you married between leaving service and retiring you would get a spouse's pension. But it's possible that other material given to the OP — like the scheme booklet — explained the situation more clearly and more correctly.