Aegon Scottish Equitable ?

Foxy-Saver

Hi Everyone

I was contacted by a financial advicer and after several meetings, they have recommended that I to move my existing pension plans from the Scottish widows to Aegon Scottish Equitable, but I have never heard of them.

I currently have several different pension plans and also opted out out of serps about 12 years ago, these are currently worth about £27000 combined. They have proposed that all these different plans be merged into one new plan and that, if I leave these for 10 years untouched I will receive an additional 4% bonus, plus a further 0.5% bonus for every year after that, seems too good to be true ?

Does anyone know anything about them ? are they a good performing company and are they reliable ?

I also understand, that from next year I will have to opt back into Serps if I like it or not, as the government are taking away this option ?

Many Thanks in advance


Foxy

Aegis

Foxy-Saver wrote: »

Hi Everyone

I was contacted by a financial advicer and after several meetings, they have recommended that I to move my existing pension plans from the Scottish widows to Aegon Scottish Equitable, but I have never heard of them.

I currently have several different pension plans and also opted out out of serps about 12 years ago, these are currently worth about £27000 combined. They have proposed that all these different plans be merged into one new plan and that, if I leave these for 10 years untouched I will receive an additional 4% bonus, plus a further 0.5% bonus for every year after that, seems too good to be true ?

Does anyone know anything about them ? are they a good performing company and are they reliable ?

I also understand, that from next year I will have to opt back into Serps if I like it or not, as the government are taking away this option ?

Many Thanks in advance


Foxy

Aegon are a perfectly legitimate insurance company, so there aren't any issues about them being fraudulent or anything.

Do bear in mind that 4% bonus after 10 years is really poor: 0.39% bonus per year. With some providers you might actually save more than that from the annual discounts given from their investment funds, so most certainly do not base your decision to lock in for 10 years on such a low sum.

Foxy-Saver

Hi Aegis

Good advice, I did not think of their 4% bonus in this way, very poor !

Also I think they charge a 8% transfer fee if I decide to move the Scottish Equitable pension at a later stage if it is not performing well !

I do not think there is any cost in moving my current plans from Scottish Widow.

Many Thanks for your great advice .

Foxy

dunstonh

they have recommended that I to move my existing pension plans from the Scottish widows to Aegon Scottish Equitable, but I have never heard of them.

One of the biggest providers of pensions in the UK.

Does anyone know anything about them ?

Pretty much everyone in financial services and a good proportion of the public. Most would have heard of them without the parent company name in front of it. i.e. Scottish Equitable.

are they a good performing company and are they reliable ?

performance of the company doesnt matter to you as as you a buying a pension. Not shares in the company. They can be a bit slow on paperwork at times but you rarely find them making errors.

Do bear in mind that 4% bonus after 10 years is really poor: 0.39% bonus per year. With some providers you might actually save more than that from the annual discounts given from their investment funds, so most certainly do not base your decision to lock in for 10 years on such a low sum.

Scot Eq have three versions. the 4% bonus one is the more popular and often does come out the cheapest of the three. Especially for smaller values. For larger values the other versions tend to come out better as they have fund based discounts.

seems too good to be true ?

Its not. Rather than call it a reduction in charges after year 10 they call it a bonus. Thats marketing for you. However, it is usual to see Scot Eq come out top or near top on pricing for people with around 15 years or more to go until retirement.

lso I think they charge a 8% transfer fee if I decide to move the Scottish Equitable pension at a later stage if it is not performing well !

Only in the first 5 years is there a transfer penalty. Also, the pension doesnt perform at all. The investments to that and the Scot Eq plan has hundreds of funds on its contract and also has SIPP functionality given you virtual whole of market access to investments if you want.

feesarefare

Foxy-Saver wrote: »

Many Thanks for your great advice .

Foxy

Foxy before thanking Aegis for great advice perhaps you should have waited until more people in the know posted the facts.

Dunstonh is correct in what he says- There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Aegon Scottish Equitable- Flexible Pension Plan as its known. For smaller amounts it usually comes out as one of the cheapest for terms over ten years. After all pensions are meant to be long term.

The loyalty bonueses are very valuable and are not offered by many other providers.

As for performance, it has links to all the fund managers you should ever need.

Foxy-Saver

Hi Dunstonh, Feesarefare

Thanks to you both for some great points, I do not know much about pensions, as you can probably tell, but I will be keeping a very close eye on things from now on and try to keep track of how my funds performing each year.

Aegon Scottish Equitable were recommended to me by the Welback Group after they had run various analysis scenarios comparing my current Scottish Widow schemes to the ones offered by Scottish Equitable and apparently it will out perform the Scottish Widow schemes by about 1.5% per year.

The managed fund, which has been mentioned is the IFDS OMIS Balanced fund, which is a spread of various equities, cash and bonds, would you say this is a good increase in performance on my current scenario, or should I be looking for greater increases before moving my pension ?

Thanks again for your points and also for taking the time to reply to my questions.

Foxy

dunstonh

Aegon Scottish Equitable were recommended to me by the Welback Group after they had run various analysis scenarios comparing my current Scottish Widow schemes to the ones offered by Scottish Equitable and apparently it will out perform the Scottish Widow schemes by about 1.5% per year.

Performance is unknown. They cant suggest that sort of thing.

It is more likely that they are telling you the cost difference per year. i.e. if both grow by 7% p.a. then you would save 1.5% a year in charges. It is an FSA mandatory to compare like for like on charges.

The managed fund, which has been mentioned is the IFDS OMIS Balanced fund, which is a spread of various equities, cash and bonds, would you say this is a good increase in performance on my current scenario, or should I be looking for greater increases before moving my pension ?

Surprise choice in my opinion. I would have thought something like the Universal Lifestyle Collection. If you dont understand investing then you are better off keeping low cost and going with self balancing funds with lifestyling. I'm not sure why they picked that one but then we dont have their information available. I would ask why that fund.

Foxy-Saver

Hi Dunstonh

Thanks for your advice, I will mention the "Universal Lifestyle Collection" fund and see what they say, it might be something to do with the 10 year 4% bonus.

I have completed a risk assessment profile and it was calculated that I have a balanced view on investing.

There seems to be a rush to complete the pension transfer before the start of the new financial year, is there a good reason for this ?

I am a bit worried and do not want to be rushed into making any wrong decisions.

Thanks again for your help, most appreciated.


Foxy

Damask

The 10 year bonus is built into the product - not the fund. Assuming that you've paid all the contributions as planned, you'll get a bonus equal to 4% of your fund value. It doesn't apply to self-invested funds.

Foxy-Saver

Hi Damask

The bonus only applies to my existing pension funds with Scottish Widows that I am planning to transfer as this can be locked in and not to my new payments.

I do not quite understand what you mean by self-invested funds ? Does this affect my new payments ?

Thanks


Foxy

dunstonh

The bonus only applies to my existing pension funds with Scottish Widows that I am planning to transfer as this can be locked in and not to my new payments.

There are three versions of the Scot Eq plan and they can mix and match with regulars, singles and transfers. So, having say the 4% bonus one for the transfer and the adviser fee one for the regular is quite normal.

I do not quite understand what you mean by self-invested funds ? Does this affect my new payments ?

The pension offers a wide range of pension funds. However, if you dont want any of those, it does allow you to activate self investment where you can pick investments from across the market. This is known as a SIPP (self invested personal pension). Its typically for the more experienced investor and should not be used for inexperienced and inactive investors. So, not something to concern yourself with. its a feature that is available but you will probably never use.