
Significant market and interest rate movements over recent years have seen funding positions improve for many defined benefit pension plans across the UK, and in a lot of cases this has resulted in pension plans finding themselves with an unexpected surplus. If sponsors and trustees are not anticipating a surplus, this can lead to uncertainty as to how the surplus should be dealt with.
Once money has been paid into a pension plan it becomes subject to the terms and conditions of the plan. These terms may limit the sponsor’s ability to recover surplus money beyond the amount required ultimately to secure the plan liabilities in the insurance market, leading to a situation of “trapped surplus”.
So what can sponsors and trustees of pension plans do to guard against the risk of trapped surpluses, and how should they approach surpluses that do arise?