cashing a personal pension

timjmac

Hi, Does anyone know if it would be possible to get my savings out of two pension plans I have and invest in something more secure?

dunstonh

timjmac wrote: »

Hi, Does anyone know if it would be possible to get my savings out of two pension plans I have and invest in something more secure?

Pensions are not secure or insecure. They do not make or lose money. They are just tax wrappers. A container for which you place your investments. Those invesmtents can range from cash deposits, property, fixed interest funds, lower risk equities through to higher risk equities.

So, saying you want to put it in something more secure doesnt make any sense. It is similar to saying that you dont like a bunch of flowers so you threw the vase away because you wanted a different bunch of flowers instead. You dont change the vase, you change the flowers. With pensions, you change the investments within them.

An no you cannot cash a pension in. The Govt gives tax relief and tax free status to pensions in an attempt to encourage retirement provision. To get that you agree to put your money in the pension until you are at least 50 (55 from 2010).

timjmac

Thanks dunstonh, is there any way the value of the pension can be transferred?

dunstonh

Pensions can be transferred between pensions. That would only address your risk concerns though if you have a particular poor quality pension that only offers 1 or 2 funds with no option to fit your risk profile (Virgin stakeholder, many supermarket sold pensions, old legacy pensions for example) and you want to transfer them to one that does have a fund range that suits your risk profile.