Pensions: personal, SIPP, company...?

uajamesh

Hello,

I've trawled through alot of the posts but I'm still slightly confused, can someone please help?

I left my last company after 1.5 years and they've said that I can either take my contributions back as cash or move them to another pension - its about £8k. I want to keep them within a pension, but I don't have a personal pension.

I've read alot about SIPPs, but they seem to require intense investment knowledge and constant focus to buy/sell stocks. Not something that I'm looking for. But how else can I get a personal pension (its not one that I will contribute to regularly as I'll do that through my new company's). I suspect the answer is to see an IFA, but before I do that can I get some background advice. Do any companies offer personal plans? Whenever I look at their websites all they talk about is SIPPs as their personal pension offer.

Apologies for the simple, newbie post.

Thanks,
James

dunstonh

I suspect the answer is to see an IFA

You dont have to but if you dont know what you are doing and you dont know what is out there then an IFA will do all that for you.

Do any companies offer personal plans?

Loads.

Whenever I look at their websites all they talk about is SIPPs as their personal pension offer.

The internet based companies prefer SIPPs as they make more money for them than a personal pension would. They are cherry picking basically.

jamesd

How do you want to invest the money? If you just want to use a FTSE tracker fund then the Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP offers at least one very low cost FTSE tracker fund from HSBC, lower cost than most fund alternatives, including in non-SIPP personal pensions. It's also very easy to work with.