Standard Life windfall news

ReportInvestor

No worries, rs. Some might not arrive until the 28th.

loisamelia

bobber wrote:

My mum got her details through too if that helps, ReportInvestor. We were pleasantly surprised actually as she got more than we expected.

We both took them out at the same time (Sept 92) but hers was for £9000 for 15 years (mine 37000 for 25). She's been paying £35.79 a month and its due to mature Aug 07 (no idea of surrender value - sorry). She's been allocated 342 shares (43 less than me).

i dont understand how they allocate the shares then
we had an endowment with profits of £32,000ish over 25 years paying £47.88 a month and only got 326 shares
we started ours in august 1994

btw i may have got the maths wrong when i calculated what we may get

ReportInvestor

loisamelia wrote:

i dont understand how they allocate the shares then

Well done for asking la, I'm sure your not the only one .

It's not the target value of your endowment that counts, it's what you've invested to date and its growth.

Type of policy will also matter - so I suspect a 25 year endowment will be better than a 15 year endowment, for instance as the company can reckon to take more charges from you.

For instance, if you invested a £32 lump sum into the WP fund in 1987 eg as a pension transfer, you would have contributed more to the profits of the WP fund than someone who invested £32K monthly over 17 years from 1987-2004.

And if you have invested the same total amount - but one person over ten years (@ 100pm and the other over 20 @ 50pm - then the 20 year investment will have earned more profits for the WP fund in that time.

That's the very simplified version.

Only Mike Arnold, the appointed actuary, knows the full version.

Investors' Association knew that the variable windfall element would be heavily skewed towards the longer term policyholder.

This was why we lobbied Standard hard for a £500 basic windfall for all policyholders since we knew, on Mike Arnold's past form at Friends' Provident, that the basic windfall would prove to be an component of the average investor's total windfall

See this thread for an argument about basic rate windfalls where some longer term investors on MSE argue that £250 would be "fairer"

The current arrangements strike us as much fairer than they would have been with a £250 basic. We now have.

A few windfalls over £100,000 - ?All? to pension fund trustees?
£3,000 plus = 25,000 members - 10.4% of the membership
£2,000-£3,000 = 27,500 members - 11.5%
Mean average windfalls of £1700
Median average windfalls of £980
Minimum windfalls of £490

larry_lurex

i received a pack this morning saying i won't get a penny.

i worked for a company between 2000 till 2001 (when we were all made redundant). payed in the maximum in my pension fund, so did the company. i made no more contributions after that because i needed the money to build my own company.

anyone else who gets nothing ?

dunstonh

anyone else who gets nothing ?

Anyone not invested in with profits (but then they have benefited by more due to better investment performance)
Some company/group personal pensions
Those taken out after a certain date (which I cannot recall to hand).

headcovers

larry_lurex wrote:

i received a pack this morning saying i won't get a penny.

i worked for a company between 2000 till 2001 (when we were all made redundant). payed in the maximum in my pension fund, so did the company. i made no more contributions after that because i needed the money to build my own company.

anyone else who gets nothing ?

Woah! I was the same as you. I "opted out" into a Standard life pension in 1987 and paid into it (as did my company) until 1992. I then joined the Civil Service and as they offered a good pension I stopped paying into the SL one and I haven't made any contributions since '92.

I have had statements up until now saying that there is about "£25,000 in my fund and all the letters about demutualisation have never indicated that I wouldn't be entitled to any "windfalls". I have always been told that my fund was "with profits", so always thought that I was entitled.

I haven't got my letter yet, but now you've worried me that I won't get anything either.

larry_lurex

headcovers wrote:

... I haven't got my letter yet, but now you've worried me that I won't get anything either.

i hope you won't get anything either so i'm not alone.

joke, i don't.

the brochure says that 'you're not eligible if you have stopped paying your premiums'. if you are affected as well we could start a two man riot until they cave in and buy a pint, though.

ReportInvestor

Company pensions may be complex. Sorry to hear of anyone with a WP investment who is missing out, for whatever reason .

For ordinary individual policyholders, any investment in the with profits fund between March 2004 and May 31st 2006 should qualify - whether you have stopped payments or not.

But I'm no expert on Standard Life company pensions. EdInvestor may know more.

If the pensions are not invested in the WP fund they don't qualify for a windfall - but I appreciate that is not hc's position (don't know yet about ll).

However, other funds eg Standard's successful commercial property fund, may leave some company pension fund investors better off (without a windfall) than individual investors (with a windfall) in the WP fund.

candygirl

mine says ill get 404!!im still no wiser!!!

surfsister

candygirl wrote:

mine says ill get 404!!im still no wiser!!!

That means 404 shares at around £2.50 each which you can keep or sell