Friends Provident - Money Purchase Pension

parcival

Back in the mid 1990's the company I worked for decided it did not want to administer a pension scheme and the employees were set up with a free standing money purchase pension with Friends Provident.

My pot is currently worth about £20k and it goes up and down like a yoyo with the stock market. I am no longer contributing.

FP apply an annual charge of 1%.

I am 13 years away from retirement and concerned that the charges are wiping out any small gains that the fund may make.

Given that it's a small fund value are there any products that I could transfer the 20k into that have smaller or ideally no charges. I would be happy to move into some form of fixed rate arrangement to eliminate risk and uncertainty.

yelf

no - how do you think Friends Provident or any life company pay their employees? They have to charge. I doubt you will find a cheaper contract: 1% is cheap.

dunstonh

I am 13 years away from retirement and concerned that the charges are wiping out any small gains that the fund may make.

That is an unnecessary concern.

Given that it's a small fund value are there any products that I could transfer the 20k into that have smaller or ideally no charges.

Can you think of any business that doesnt earn from what they do?

I would be happy to move into some form of fixed rate arrangement to eliminate risk and uncertainty.

You are still paying charges though. A typical bank savings account has a implicit charge of around 1.3%. You just dont see it. Pensions have explicit charges so you see them.

FP have a fund range available to cover different risk profiles. If you wish to reduce the risk then you can do so. However, make sure you dont replace investment risk with shortfall risk or inflation risk.