Lets paint a picture" A pension administrator answers the same question - "why has my estimate changed?" for the 15th time before lunch. By 2pm, they are mentally drained, truly complex cases wait until 4pm. This isn't just inefficiency, it's the real unspoken cost of rising member expectations.
Pension administration teams are under growing pressure.
That pressure is not only coming from regulation, dashboards preparation or data quality requirements. Increasingly, it is coming from members themselves.
Today’s pension members expect digital services that feel comparable to online banking, insurance apps or modern HR systems. They expect fast answers, self-service access and clear communication.
But many pension administration processes were not originally designed for this level of continuous engagement.
The result is a growing operational challenge for schemes and administrators: high volumes of repetitive member queries consuming significant administrative time.
Most of these queries are not especially complex.
They are questions like:
- “Why has my estimate changed?”
- “What is my retirement age?”
- “How do I update my address?”
- “What happens if I reduce my hours?”
Individually, these questions may only take a few minutes to answer. Collectively, they consume huge amounts of operational time.
Rising expectations are changing the workload
The scale of the challenge is significant.
At the end of March 2025, total membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) reached 6.9 million people across England and Wales, continuing the scheme’s steady growth in recent years.
At the same time, the pensions dashboards programme reported that more than 60 million workplace and personal pension records had already been connected by December 2025 ahead of the final connection deadline in October 2026.
(Source:https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/progress-update-report)
Dashboards are not really a finish line. They are more like a starting point.
Because once members can finally see all their pension information in one place, the next step is usually questions. Lots of them.
Historically, many DB and public sector pension members only interacted with their pension scheme occasionally, often when changing jobs or approaching retirement.
That is changing rapidly.
As schemes introduce:
- member portals
- online retirement modelling
- digital annual statements
- dashboards preparation
- self-service tools
members are engaging far more frequently with pension information that is often complex and emotionally important.
The operational consequence is clear: more interactions, more clarification requests and higher expectations for response times.
Engagement increases demand for explanation
Across the LGPS and wider pensions industry, self-service functionality is expanding significantly.
The LGPS digital engagement guidance highlights the operational benefits of self-service, including enabling members to update personal data, run retirement estimates and trigger automated workflows.
(Source:https://lgpslibrary.org/assets/gas/uk/Digi_Engage_TG_v1.1c.pdf)
But self-service does not eliminate queries. In many ways, it upgrades them.
Instead of:
“What is my pension value?”
schemes start receiving questions like:
“Why is my pension value different from last year?”
Or:
“If I reduce my hours next year, how will that affect my retirement date?”
Members may now have immediate access to:
- benefit projections
- annual statements
- retirement estimates
- McCloud-related information
- contribution records
- transfer values
But pension information remains inherently complicated.
Visibility increases engagement. Engagement increases demand for explanation.
The hidden operational cost of repetitive queries
Many pension administration teams spend substantial time handling repetitive, low-complexity queries.
These queries are rarely difficult individually. The challenge is volume.
For example:
- password reset requests
- retirement age clarification
- annual benefit statement questions
- nomination updates
- address changes
- transfer process explanations
- contribution queries
Individually, these interactions may take only minutes. Collectively, they consume significant operational capacity.
This becomes particularly challenging during:
- annual statement periods
- regulatory changes
- pensions dashboards rollout
- McCloud communications
- market volatility
One administrator I spoke to recently described spending most mornings answering the same handful of questions repeatedly, only getting to genuinely complex cases later in the day once already mentally drained.
That probably sounds familiar to many administration teams.
According to The Pensions Regulator’s market oversight findings, around two-thirds of administrators reported increasing investment in administration technology or automation over the previous two years. Among large administrators, this rose to 96%, with the main drivers being improved member services, efficiency and cost reduction.
That reflects a wider reality across the industry: administration teams are being asked to deliver faster, more responsive services while managing increasing complexity and growing engagement.
Why this matters beyond efficiency
The issue is not simply administrative cost.
Poor response experiences can directly affect:
- member confidence
- trust in the scheme
- complaint volumes
- perceptions of governance quality
For many members, pensions remain confusing and stressful.
The Pensions Policy Institute’s latest published estimate found 3.3 million lost pension pots in the UK, containing £31.1bn of assets. PPI has since launched an expanded 2026 lost pensions survey, including both DC and DB schemes, with updated findings expected in October 2026.
Research published by Pensions UK found that 77% of savers want to see all of their pensions in one place, reflecting growing demand for simplicity, accessibility and clearer engagement.
The demand for clarity is no longer mainly coming from regulators. It is increasingly coming from members themselves.
Where AI may realistically help, and MemberBridge’s role
This is where AI is beginning to attract serious attention within pensions administration.
MemberBridge's "pension little helper" AI bot is designed specially for this problem. Handling the high volume of repetitive, low-complexity queries that drain administrator capacity while preserving human judgement for genuinely complex cases.
Importantly, the most credible industry discussions are not focused on replacing administrators, instead they are focussed on:- Handling repetitive informational queries- Improving consistency- Supporting knowledge retrieval- Assisting navigation- Helping members access trusted guidance more quickly
Importantly, the most credible industry discussions are not focused on replacing administrators.
Instead, they focus on:
- handling repetitive informational queries
- improving consistency
- supporting knowledge retrieval
- assisting navigation
- helping members access trusted guidance more quickly
PASA’s guidance on AI in pensions administration specifically highlights use cases including chatbots, virtual assistants, predictive analytics and intelligent document processing, while also emphasising governance, data quality and risk management.
Member expectations also suggest that a balanced approach is likely to be most effective.
Research published in Professional Pensions found that 79% of UK pension savers prefer a hybrid model combining human support and AI interaction, rather than fully automated service.
That distinction matters.
Most members do not want to wait on hold for simple questions. But equally, they probably do not want fully automated interactions for sensitive or emotionally difficult situations either.
The future of pension administration is unlikely to be fully automated.
More realistically, AI and MemberBridge's bot in particular becomes one of the tools schemes use to reduce repetitive workload, improve consistency and help administration teams focus on genuinely complex cases where human support matters most.
The schemes that succeed digitally may not be the most automated
The most successful pension schemes over the next decade are unlikely to be those pursuing maximum automation at any cost.
They are more likely to be schemes that:
- reduce unnecessary friction
- improve clarity
- support members earlier
- enable administration teams to operate sustainably under growing demand
Digital transformation in pensions is no longer simply about moving forms online.
It is increasingly about helping members navigate complexity with greater confidence while enabling administration teams to manage rising engagement expectations effectively.
And as dashboards, digital engagement and member expectations continue to accelerate, the operational cost of member queries is likely to become one of the defining administration challenges of the next few years.
For pension colleagues reading this - What is the one question you find yourselves answering more than any other each week?
Drop it in the comments and let's see which questions come up most often.
