United Kingdom

Aon Announces New Faces In Its CDC Team

Focus now on wider potential of schemes

LONDON (27 June 2019) – Aon plc (NYSE:AON), a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, has announced new names in its Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) team.

Matthew Arends, head of UK Retirement Policy for Aon and leader of Aon's Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) team, said:
"Kevin Wesbroom has called time on his 44-year career at Aon and so will be leaving the Aon CDC team from the end of June. Having been instrumental in championing CDC in the UK for many years, he will leave very big shoes to fill.

"I am delighted to say, however, that Chintan Gandhi will be joining the CDC team. He joins me and Madalena Cain in developing our thought leadership in this area, lobbying government for the widening of CDC to all savers, and in working with clients to develop their own CDC strategies."

Chintan Gandhi, principal consultant at Aon, said:
"Current and future generations of younger savers in the private sector will generally not enjoy the advantages of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes and are unlikely to prosper to the same extent through their existing defined contribution pension plans. Clearly, the introduction of auto-enrolment means they will at least get something, but is that good enough?

“I founded the Younger Members' Group of the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA), and I now sit on the ACA's Main Committee. Through these ACA groups, I've been heavily involved in developing industry thinking on intergenerational fairness in pension provision, and it's clear this area is a key source of the intergenerational imbalances we see in society – and which will continue if something isn’t done about it.”

Chintan Gandhi continued:
“I see CDC pension schemes as one of the answers – they offer the opportunity to bring back an element of certainty in pension saving, with a target, inflation-linked income in retirement – and can be for all.

“It's great to see Government legislating for the introduction of CDC for Royal Mail, and its commitment for this to be extended more widely in due course. But what will this actually look like?

Madalena Cain, principal consultant at Aon, said:
“I, for one, hope we see CDC being accessible to the many through the development of CDC master trusts, decumulation-only CDC platforms, and industry-wide or multi-employer CDC plans.

Madalena Cain, principal consultant at Aon, said:
“I, for one, hope we see CDC being accessible to the many through the development of CDC master trusts, decumulation-only CDC platforms, and industry-wide or multi-employer CDC plans.

Matthew Arends said:
"We look forward to exciting times ahead for CDC in the UK. The first part of this will be the legislation to enable single employer CDC plans, which we hope to see soon. But we call on government and the DWP not to stop there, but to bring in as rapidly as possible the second phase of enabling legislation that would permit other, wider-reaching options."

Media Contact:

 

For further information please contact:

 

Colin Mayes

Aon

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Tommy Cooper

Kekst CNC

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Notes to Editors

About Aon

Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.

Aon announced in May 2018 it will retire the business unit brands of Aon Benfield and Aon Risk Solutions, which follows the retirement of the Aon Hewitt business unit brand in 2017. This move was designed to increase the rate of innovation across the firm and make it easier for colleagues to work together to bring the best of Aon to clients. Aon has five specific global solution lines: Commercial Risk Solutions, Reinsurance Solutions, Retirement Solutions, Health Solutions and Data & Analytic Services.

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