Pension and Divorce

Mark and Lorraine were getting divorced after over two decades of marriage.
Mark had worked for the majority of his working life in a UK bluechip and left through a redundancy process for Senior Management.

Mark had over 20 years in the companies Defined Benefit Pension Scheme and the cash equivalent transfer value was circa £500,000.

Lorraine only worked part time and had no real pension assets. The couple had brought up children during their marriage.

During the divorce process both parties appointed solicitors, Lorraine appointed a barrister too and an actuary was appointed by the solicitors to focus on the pension. This was a joint appointment for both Mark and Lorraine to get a professional independent actuarial report.

Both Lorraine and Mark were old enough to draw pension benefits.

The actuary’s report recommended that 70% of the value of the pension (£350,000) should be transferred to Lorraine with the balance, 30% (£150,000) transferred to Mark.

Following our negotiations looking at a variety of retirement factors, income rates, annuity rates, typical longevity of genders, death benefits and the value of money both now and in the future a settlement of circa 50% and 50% was agreed by all parties.

This increased Mark’s (our client) pension value by circa £100,000.

Additional Notes
To protect client confidentiality names and values have been changed.

Other marital assets were discussed and the subject of negotiation but our focus was on the pension.