General pensions advice for a no-hoper!

parryts

Hi,

Newbie here, I'm afraid I'm really rubbish at the whole pensions thing as I still don't understand the difference between stakeholder and personal pensions, but basically I'm getting on a bit, my husband is in the forces so we move around alot ::) I have a couple of company pensions, but really need to sort something else out, I am opted out of serps and this money goes into Abbey Life (I know it's no good!) I want to move this money and add to it myself, but who do I go to? how? and Abbey say I will incur costs if I move ???

Can anyone help?

Many, many thanks

TraceyP

dunstonh

Find an IFA who can do a cost analysis on the transfer. They can take the cost of transfer into account along with future charges leaving it where it is against the alternative schemes available.

Pension transfers cannot be done willy nilly. They need adquate justification.

FYI, personal pensions and stakeholder pensions are exactly the same thing apart from the way they make charges. A stakeholder has a defined charging structure which cannot exceed a certain threshold. Personal pensions can have alternative charging methods, with no cap, which can be better or worse than the stakeholder.

Milarky

Tracey,

It may be worth noting also that you should review your contracted-out decision. fairly often

You may

1) Leave it as it is - with Abbey
2) Select an alternative provider to receive just the S2P rebate in place of Abbey [e.g a Stakeholder provider with lower charges, say] OR
3) Contract back in [to S2P] from next year by completing the appropriate forms now

None of this bears directly on whom you may choose to recieve your own pension contributions if [or when] you move from Abbey of course.