This article provides a step-by-step guide as to how you can quickly and easily write a suitability report for a pension sharing order.

Start your report in the normal way – go to write/ view report and then select (or add) the client. Don’t forget you can write the report on behalf of another user within your account if you have view all users’ clients and reports enabled.

Report creation method

1. The report creation method should be ‘From scratch’. Note that there isn’t a Genovo report template for pension sharing cases, but if you find you’re doing several, you can always create your own template from a client report.

Report type

2. In Report Details, you will be prompted to give the report a name and choose the report type – select Suitability Report and then click Save. 

Adding the required sections

3. Once you’ve selected the report type, you’ll be taken to the Report Builder, where you will notice that only the Introduction and Important Information wizard sections are already included – you’ll need to add other required sections yourself from the Available Sections drop-down list.

There’s a really simple choice to make first – is the pension share going into an existing plan belonging to the client, or are you recommending a new plan set up specifically for the purpose of receiving the funds?

a) If the pension share is going to be received by an existing plan, you’ll need the Review of Your Existing Pension Plans section.

b) If the pension share is going to be received by a new plan, you’ll need the New Pension Recommendation section.

Finally, you’ll also need to add the Recommended Investment Strategy section – it’s here that you’ll include details of the clients ATR and capacity for loss, as well as detailing the new investment strategy of a new plan, or a revised investment strategy for an existing plan.

Complete the Wizard Sections

You should now work though each of the wizard sections in turn:

a) Introduction section:

i)In the Client Circumstances step, you might wish to use the text box to provide the ‘back-story’ to the recommendation, e.g. 

ii) In the Objectives step, there is a standard Advice Option that deals with pension sharing orders, and you can click the add KYC info link to edit the objective and provide additional information about the sharing order. 

b) Review of Your Existing Pension Plans - where pension share funds are going into an existing plan:

i) You’ll be prompted to provide some information regarding the client’s existing plan(s) within the Plan Summary step. As a bare minimum you should include some basic plan details e.g. provider name, policy number etc and complete the Current Fund Value £ field. Remember you do not have to enter a value for all fields. Empty columns will not show in the Plan Summary table included within your report.

ii) You should add the amount of pension sharing order in the Top-up amount £ field: 

iii) You may also wish to include details of the plan's Current Investment Strategy – this is especially important if the received pension share funds are going into an existing plan and using the same current investment strategy of that plan.

iv) NOTE – you do not need to enter the ex-spouse’s plan from where the pension sharing order funds are being moved. You probably won’t know all of the details of this plan anyway. Instead, you can cover off the details of the ex-spouse’s plan in the Introduction section, as mentioned above.

v) After the Plan Summary step, complete the Benefits and Features and Plan Charges steps as normal.

vi) Next is the Recommended Action step. For the client’s existing plan, you should select ‘invest the pension share within’.

vii) In the Key Disadvantages and Tax Implications step, you should record any disadvantages associated with your recommended action.

c) New Pension Recommendation – where the pension share funds are going into a new plan:

i) Complete the Plan Summary step – add the pension share amount into the Transfer Lump Sum £ field.

ii) Complete the Why Product step as normal with your reasons for selecting the recommended product type.

iii) On the Why Contribution step, you can select from any of the Genovo Advice Reasons. There isn’t one specifically for pension sharing orders, so you can add your own by clicking the add advice reason button and writing your own custom text. Remember that when you create a custom Advice Option or Advice Reason, you can save it to your own Advice Options & Reasons Library, and if you have an Account Admin role in your firm’s Genovo account you can also share it so other users within your Genovo account can use it too: