What is a letter of authority?

A client-signed authorisation that lets an adviser or paraplanner request the client’s policy information directly from a provider. It does not move money or change the policy — it opens the information channel the calculation inputs come through.

When must a provider issue a pension savings statement automatically?

Under PTM167100, the scheme administrator must issue one where the member’s pension input amounts under that arrangement exceed the annual allowance, by 6 October following the end of the tax year. Members can also request one where it was not automatic.

Is a chargeable event certificate guaranteed to arrive?

The insurer has a statutory duty (ICTA 1988 s.552) to deliver a certificate when a chargeable event produces a gain. On part surrenders it follows the policy-year end rather than the withdrawal date, so its timing often lags the transaction.

Does ParaplanAI calculate from the documents it reads?

No. AI only transcribes figures from uploaded documents into a structured draft; every field passes human review first, and all calculation is done by deterministic, corpus-tested code. Single-document upload is the production-proven path; multi-document pack upload is in beta.

← Learn/Practice · Information gathering

Letters of authority: gathering the numbers a calculation needs

Most of the time in a technical calculation is not the maths — it is getting the inputs out of providers. What an LoA can ask for, which documents answer which question, and the honest state of automated reading.

Based on HMRC’s Pensions Tax Manual (PTM167100), ICTA 1988 s.552, and the cited industry sources on the letter-of-authority process.

5 min read · Last reviewed 9 Jul 2026

Written and reviewed by the ParaplanAI technical desk · How we verify the numbers

— In short

A letter of authority lets a firm request a client’s policy information directly from the provider, and the industry’s own record describes the process as slow enough that dedicated digital services now exist for it. The calculation inputs live in specific documents — pension savings statements, chargeable event certificates, annual statements — so a request that names those documents converges faster than a general one.

Ask a paraplanner where the week went and the answer is rarely “the tax computation”. It went on getting the inputs: a letter of authority to each provider, a wait, a reply that answers half the request, a chaser. The maths at the end takes minutes; the information gathering takes weeks. That ratio is documented, and it can be improved at both ends — by asking for the right documents, and by reading them faster when they arrive.

Why the wait is structural

The letter-of-authority bottleneck is not one firm's bad luck; the industry says so itself. Origo, which runs shared services between UK advisers, providers and platforms, built its Unipass Letter of Authority service explicitly to, in its words, solve “the issues experienced between advisers, providers and platforms in sending and receiving letters of authority”, with status notifications aimed at “reducing your chaser calls”. Royal London's adviser site (June 2026) is blunter: “the traditional LoA process has long been a pain point for advisers”, citing delays, inconsistent responses, paper forms and wet signatures — and reports more than 5,000 LoAs through its own digital route in a year. When providers and infrastructure bodies build dedicated services to fix a process, the process is the problem.

Name the documents, not the topic

A general request — “full policy information, please” — invites a general reply. The inputs a tax calculation needs sit in specific documents that providers are, in several cases, already obliged to produce. For a pension annual-allowance question: the pension savings statement, which the scheme administrator must issue automatically where the member's pension input amounts under the scheme exceed the annual allowance (£60,000 as the standard figure since 2023/24), by 6 October following the tax year (PTM167100) — and can be asked for where it wasn't automatic; plus the last statements showing pension input amounts for the carry-forward years. For a bond question: the chargeable event certificate— the insurer's statutory document under ICTA 1988 s.552 — together with the premium history, any part-surrender history and the segment count, which fix the gain, N and the 5%-allowance position.

Naming documents does two things: it lets the provider route the request to the team that holds them, and it makes the reply checkable — a named document either arrives or it doesn't, whereas “information” always arrives, just not necessarily the right information.

What each document answers

Document → calculation input

Pension savings statement (PTM167100): Pension input amounts; carry-forward years
DB statement pair (opening/closing): DB pension input amount
Chargeable event certificate (ICTA 1988 s.552): Gain, event type, complete years (N)
Premium & withdrawal history: 5% allowance position; segment arithmetic
P60 / tax-year income record: Income for the band and taper tests

The certificate deserves its own reading discipline — what each box means and the figures worth re-deriving are covered in how to read a chargeable event certificate.

Where document reading fits — honestly

Once the pack arrives, the transcription step is automatable, and this is the one place AI sits in our workflow: ParaplanAI reads the figures off an uploaded provider document — a pension savings statement, a chargeable event certificate, a P60 — into a structured draft. The division of labour is strict: AI extracts, deterministic code calculates, and the two never mix; every extracted field passes through a human review screen before any calculation runs. The honest state of it: single-document upload is the proven, production-tested path. Multi-document provider-pack upload exists and is in beta — it is slower and less robust today, and uploading the key documents one at a time is the route we stand behind. Either way the extracted figures are shown against the source document for checking, because a transcription layer earns trust the same way a calculation layer does: by being inspectable.

PTM167100 (pension savings statements) · ICTA 1988 s.552 (chargeable event certificates) · industry LoA record per the References below

References

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988, s.552 — legislation.gov.uk (accessed 2026-07-09).
HMRC Pensions Tax Manual, PTM167100 — pension savings statements provided automatically to the member (accessed 2026-07-09).
Origo, "Unipass Letter of Authority" (service page) (accessed 2026-07-09).
Royal London for advisers, "Simplifying the Letter of Authority process", 8 June 2026 (accessed 2026-07-09).

Common questions

What is a letter of authority?: A client-signed authorisation that lets an adviser or paraplanner request the client’s policy information directly from a provider. It does not move money or change the policy — it opens the information channel the calculation inputs come through.
When must a provider issue a pension savings statement automatically?: Under PTM167100, the scheme administrator must issue one where the member’s pension input amounts under that arrangement exceed the annual allowance, by 6 October following the end of the tax year. Members can also request one where it was not automatic.
Is a chargeable event certificate guaranteed to arrive?: The insurer has a statutory duty (ICTA 1988 s.552) to deliver a certificate when a chargeable event produces a gain. On part surrenders it follows the policy-year end rather than the withdrawal date, so its timing often lags the transaction.
Does ParaplanAI calculate from the documents it reads?: No. AI only transcribes figures from uploaded documents into a structured draft; every field passes human review first, and all calculation is done by deterministic, corpus-tested code. Single-document upload is the production-proven path; multi-document pack upload is in beta.

Sources & grounding

Industry LoA record: Origo’s Unipass Letter of Authority service page (the service “solves the issues experienced between advisers, providers and platforms in sending and receiving letters of authority”; notifications “reducing your chaser calls”) and Royal London’s adviser article of 8 June 2026 (“The traditional LoA process has long been a pain point for advisers”; more than 5,000 LoAs through its digital service in a year). Both accessed 2026-07-09 — see the References list.
Document obligations: PTM167100 (a scheme administrator must automatically issue a pension savings statement where pension input amounts under the scheme exceed the annual allowance, by 6 October following the tax year); ICTA 1988 s.552 (the insurer’s duty to deliver a chargeable event certificate). Both re-verified 2026-07-09. Standard annual allowance £60,000 (2023/24 onwards) = standardAnnualAllowance 6000000 (pence) in calc-engine/configs/2023-24.json through 2026-27.json.
Product claims are deliberately conservative per the operating manual: AI reads documents and never computes; every extracted field passes user review before any calculation runs; single-document upload is the production-proven path and multi-document pack upload is described as beta.

For planning and illustration purposes only. Verify all inputs against source documents. This explainer does not constitute financial or tax advice.