Cushon: workplace pensions, ISAs and how your money is protected

Cushon is a UK workplace pension and savings provider. Most people meet it through their employer: if you have been auto-enrolled into a workplace pension and the scheme is run by Cushon, your own contributions and your employer's go into a Cushon account, and you manage it through Cushon's website or app. Cushon also offers personal savings products, including ISAs, alongside the pension side of the business.

The firm behind the brand has been authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority since 1 December 2020, with firm reference number 929465¹. It has been through several names: Smarterly, SmarterInvestment, NatWest Cushon and Smarterly Limited all appear as previous names on the FCA Register, and Cushon is the current trading name¹. The company was incorporated on 14 December 2017 and remains active².

What follows covers what Cushon offers, how its charges are structured, how to move old pensions across, what you cannot transfer, and how your money is protected if something goes wrong.

What Cushon offers: workplace pensions and personal savings

Cushon's main business is workplace pensions. A workplace pension is a scheme your employer arranges, and in most cases your employer also adds money into it for you⁶. Some employers offer personal pensions as their workplace pension, which is the arrangement where you hold the pension in your own name but the employer pays in⁷.

Personal pensions themselves are available from banks, building societies and life insurance companies, and personal pension schemes including stakeholder schemes are provided by insurance companies, banks and building societies⁸. A personal pension is one you arrange yourself: you choose the provider and decide how contributions are paid, sometimes through an independent financial adviser⁹.

That distinction matters for how you deal with Cushon. If your employer chose Cushon, you did not pick it and you may not be able to move the scheme while you are with that employer. If you opened a Cushon account yourself, it is your arrangement and you can transfer it elsewhere.

A personal pension may suit you if you are self-employed without access to a workplace pension, if you are not working but can afford to pay in, if you want to save more for retirement, or if your employer offers one as the workplace scheme⁷. Other people and family members can pay into a personal pension on your behalf⁷. For the wider picture, see Pensions: a complete guide.

Cushon ISAs and investment accounts

Alongside pensions, Cushon offers savings products including ISAs. There are four types of ISA available: cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative finance ISAs and lifetime ISAs¹⁰. ISAs are products that allow tax-free investment into cash, funds and equities¹¹.

The type you hold changes what you own and what risk you carry. A cash ISA is a savings account with tax-free interest. A stocks and shares ISA holds investments, so its value can fall as well as rise. Savings accounts generally come as ISAs, instant access and fixed term options, and the access terms are what decide whether you can reach the money when you need it¹².

If you are comparing Cushon's savings side with what else is available, the ISAs: a complete guide and Savings accounts: a complete guide set out how the different types work and what to check. Complaints about ISAs, including lifetime ISAs, can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service if the firm does not resolve them¹³.

How Cushon's charges work

Cushon, like other providers, charges for running your account, and the charges come out of the money invested rather than being billed separately. The exact figures depend on the scheme your employer has set up and on the products you hold, so the place to check today's numbers is Cushon's own documentation for your account.

What matters when you read a pension or ISA charge is what each element covers:

• Platform or account charge: pays for holding and administering the account.
• Fund charge: pays for managing the investments you are invested in.
• Transaction or setup charges: some schemes carry a charge for the employer's setup or for particular transactions.

Two accounts with the same headline percentage can cost very different amounts once the fund charges are added in.

Because charges are deducted from the pot, they compound in the same way returns do: a charge taken every year reduces the pot every year, and the effect grows over a long working life. That is why the charge level is one of the few things worth checking before you consolidate old pensions into any provider, not just Cushon.

If you are unsure what you are paying, ask Cushon for a breakdown of the charges on your specific account, and compare it with the charges on any pension you are thinking of transferring in. Free, impartial guidance on pensions is available if you want help understanding the figures before you decide¹⁴.

Where Cushon invests your pension

A workplace pension is invested on your behalf, and the default arrangement is what most members end up in unless they choose something else. Providers typically offer a default investment plan plus a menu of alternatives, and the number and shape of those options varies widely between providers¹⁵.

The default is designed for a broad range of members rather than for you specifically. It usually shifts the mix of investments as you approach retirement, moving away from growth assets and towards whatever the scheme uses to prepare for taking an income. If you never make a choice, that is what your money follows.

Your options are usually to stay in the default, or to pick from the scheme's other investment plans if it offers them. Choosing your own means taking on the decision about risk and timing, and the value can fall. Leaving it in the default means accepting whatever the scheme has chosen for someone in your position.

If you want to understand what you are invested in, ask Cushon for the fund factsheets for your scheme and read what each fund holds and what it costs. The Investing: a complete guide explains how funds work and what risk means in practice.

Managing your Cushon pension in the app or online

Cushon runs its accounts digitally. You register, log in and manage contributions, investments and personal details through its website or app. That is how you check your balance, change your investment choices, update your nominated beneficiaries and download statements.

If you would rather not manage a pension online, ask Cushon what it can do by phone, post or email before you assume there is no alternative. Providers vary in how much they will handle outside the app, and the answer depends on your scheme.

Keeping your details current matters more than it looks. Your address, your nominated beneficiaries and your contact details are what the scheme uses to reach you and to pay out. If you move house and do not tell the provider, a pension can become one of the pots people later have to trace.

If you change jobs, your Cushon account does not close. It stays yours, and you can leave it where it is, transfer it to a new employer's scheme, or transfer it into a personal pension. Leaving it alone is a legitimate option: it keeps the pension invested and avoids a transfer you do not need.

Combining old pensions into Cushon

Pension consolidation is where you bring multiple pensions together by transferring them into one provider or scheme³. The appeal is administrative: one account, one set of charges, one place to check. The risk is that you could save money or lose valuable benefits¹⁴.

That trade-off is the whole decision. Before transferring anything into Cushon, find out what the old scheme gives you that a new one would not. Guaranteed annuity rates, a protected retirement age, a higher employer contribution or a defined benefit promise are all things that can be lost in a transfer and cannot be recreated afterwards.

The mechanics are straightforward:

1. Ask Cushon for a transfer.
2. Cushon contacts your old provider.
3. The money moves.

A transfer often takes between two and six weeks, but your provider has up to six months to action your request³. Some providers using electronic transfer methods move pensions in five to 10 days, and the statutory framework allows six months for a transfer to happen¹⁶. If a transfer goes past three months without a reason, that may justify a complaint⁴.

Pensions you cannot or should not transfer

Some pensions cannot be moved at all, and others should not be moved without a very good reason. You might not be able to transfer if you have a share of an ex-partner's pension following a divorce, or a scheme with special features or guarantees such as a Guaranteed Minimum Pension¹⁷.

Final salary, or defined benefit, schemes are the ones to treat with most caution. Anyone considering transferring a final salary pension worth more than £30,000 must seek financial advice, and some schemes will not accept transfers without advice whatever the value⁴. You will usually have to pay for that advice¹⁸.

The reason for the caution is that a final salary pension promises an income based on your salary and service, and that promise sits with the scheme rather than with you. Moving it into a defined contribution arrangement replaces a promise with a pot whose value depends on investment performance and how long you live. Once a payment has been sent to another scheme on your behalf, the transfer cannot be reversed¹⁹.

If you are weighing this up, free, impartial information about transferring your pension is available¹⁸. Pension Wise offers guidance on taking a whole pot²⁰, and MoneyHelper covers making the most of your pension¹⁴.

Cushon for employers: who can sign up

Cushon's workplace side is sold to employers, who then enrol their staff. The employer chooses the scheme, sets the contribution levels within the legal minimums, and decides when staff are brought in.

Smaller employers are a large part of the workplace pension market. A micro-enterprise, for the purposes of the rules, employs fewer than 10 people²¹. Employers of that size still have automatic enrolment duties, and a scheme like Cushon's is one way of meeting them.

If you are an employee rather than an employer, the practical point is that you usually do not choose the provider. Your employer does. That means your options are to stay in the scheme, opt out if you are eligible to, or transfer the pot after you leave that job.

If your employer is not paying in what they should, you can report missing payments to The Pensions Regulator. You will need:

• The name and address of your employer
• Your employer's PAYE number if they have one
• How much money you think is missing and when it should have been paid
• Any evidence you have²²

Taking your pension: Cushon does not offer annuities itself

When you reach the point of taking money from a pension, the main choices are to leave it invested and draw an income, take lump sums, buy an annuity, or some combination. Cushon does not provide annuities itself, so if you want one you would buy it from an annuity provider.

You do not have to buy your annuity from your pension provider, and you can shop around²³. That matters because annuity rates vary between providers, and once you buy a lifetime annuity you cannot change it later²⁴.

There are no comparison sites for personal pensions, so you would either search and compare options manually or pay a financial adviser⁹. An independent financial or pensions adviser can help you decide which personal pension is suitable, and they usually charge for giving advice²⁵.

Pension Wise offers free guidance on taking a whole pot²⁰, and MoneyHelper covers making the most of your pension¹⁴. If you are over 55, there is also support aimed at that stage of life²⁶. Retirement income can come from your State Pension, occupational pensions, part time work, and other savings or investments²⁷.

Who owns Cushon and how your money is protected

Cushon is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, firm reference number 929465, authorised since 1 December 2020¹. The company is active and was incorporated on 14 December 2017². It has previously traded as Smarterly, SmarterInvestment, NatWest Cushon and Smarterly Limited¹. The firm has also been named alongside Aegon UK as a collaborator on the British Growth Partnership²⁸.

Protection works differently depending on what you hold. For savings products, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme can consider claims from individuals and certain trustees⁵. The scheme rules also set out when trustees of personal pension schemes, stakeholder schemes and occupational schemes can claim²⁹.

The limit is £85,000 per person, per firm, and it does not cover losses from your actual investments: it is the company holding your investments that is covered⁵. That distinction is the one people most often get wrong. If markets fall and your ISA or pension is worth less, that is investment risk, not a firm failure, and the compensation scheme does not step in.

If you have a complaint about a personal pension that Cushon does not resolve, the Financial Ombudsman Service can look at it³⁰. Complaints about ISAs, including lifetime ISAs, also fall within its remit¹³. The ombudsman cannot help with tracing a lost pension, but the Pension Tracing Service on GOV.UK is set up specifically to help people track down lost pensions²². If you need to find pension contact details, the service is free and needs the name of the employer or pension provider, though it does not tell you whether you have a pension²⁴. If you have lost a P45, ask your pension provider for duplicate details before sending form P53Z³¹.