Should insist on Pensions Actuary report?

[Mumof3confused]

I am so confused about pensions, and whether I should insist on a pensions actuary report. This is relating to Teachers Pensions which I believe operate slightly differently to other schemes.

My soon to be ex has a teachers pension (split into two types of schemes, one being a ‘TP 60th scheme’ and the other a TP career average scheme) the CETV is about £55k in each pot.

I also have a pension with a CETV of about £18k (not a TP, just a ‘normal’ pension).

My husband insists that I do not need an actuary to value the pensions and I don’t trust him. On the other hand, I am not keen to wait for months on this report if it’s not advised/needed since I really want to get the divorce finalised ASAP so that me and the children can finally move on with my life.

I was hoping there would be someone here with professional knowledge about this!

I’m not sure what you are expecting a pensions actuary to do if you already know the value of the pensions.

An actuary cost my mum £2k and she walked away with approx £60k more. They worked out what my dads pension would be at the end, what she needed to have the equal.

My friend's former husband had a Local Authority pension rather than a Teacher's one, but it was £150 for a specific divorce report from the Pension Scheme.

I'd would expect Teachers to have something similar. He needs to log onto his pension portal and request the report.

We were instructed by court to get an Actuary’s report - my ex had 3 final salary pensions and 2 DC pensions, I had 2 DC pensions. His final salary pensions were worth much, much more than the CETV and I was awarded just under 300k of his pensions - this gave us ‘equality of income in retirement’.

To those who are saying ‘you already know the value of the pensions’. The CETV is a meaningless number when it comes to certain types of pensions like Final Salary. The true value can be much, much higher.

We are instructing one and it may mean that things take a bit longer but I’m told that it could get delayed in court if we don’t have one, so it seems the best thing to do

This is the correct response - though at £55k you need to work out just how valuable you think it might be. Sounds low.

@Collaborate I think it’s £116k which isn’t a lot, but I guess I may as well get the report now.