Which is best Pension provider?

Aegis

peterbaker wrote: »

You don't.
Yeah right. I pay my pension provider to manage my pension and bark myself??

If you abdicate all responsibility for any aspect of your financial planning, then you are being very silly. You "pay" a bank some of your interest to manage your money for them, it certainly doesn't mean that the account you opened a decade ago is still going to be a top performer. Investment strategies changes, ideal asset allocation for a given risk profile changes, managers move around between providers, etc. If you don't bother following changes and adapting your strategy to fit those changes, then you will always get sub-par performance, no matter what field you are talking about.

The reason is I was promised aomeone was managing it not stealing it. Meanwhile I was working.

Poor excuse. Everyone works. Most people would have been able to find a few hours every year to check up on one of their most important investments. In any case, you were promised that it would be managed, and it has been. As an example, your fund is down about 5% in 3 months, the FTSE is down somewhere in the region of 13% in the same timeframe (from memory, I haven't bothered to check it, just remembering a figure I calculated at work a couple of days ago). Your portfolio has therefore outperformed the falls in the stockmarket through diversification and active management of the asset allocation. It may have underperformed your long-term expectations, but that's not their fault if their mandate is to try to generally reduce risk where possible. Rather it probably means that this particular fund isn't for you and you should have switched.

I am badmouthing the whole industry in case you hadn't noticed, and with ample good reason, thanks :mad:

Not really, it still sounds like you're blaming the industry for your lack of motivation to do a regular financial check-up on your investments.

I wouldn't leave an investment alone for 8 years, nor would I go 8 years without getting my car serviced, getting a medical/dental check-up, checking my bank account and credit card rates, etc. Why should a pension be different?

dunstonh

Yeah right. I pay my pension provider to manage my pension and bark myself??

If you choose a fund then the manager can only act within the remit of that fund. So, if you pick say UK Equity, it will invest 100% into UK equity even if UK equity is the worst place to be. You either need to pick a servicing IFA to report and rebalance your investments or you should pick a diverse self balancing fund or you should do your own rebalancing.

Lazy investing rarely works unless you pick investments that are diverse and self balancing.

Sticking in obsolete, legacy products because you cant be bothered is not the fault of anyone else.

peterbaker

I am sorry dunstonh, but how dare you and the other apparent industry insiders suggest that I could possibly know what funds I am supposed to choose when I do some kind of annual post-mortem on the shrapnel that passes for my pension fund? This is especially so when every single one of my no less than eight separate funds has been either taken over, or switched "automatically" or "wound up" or managed by someone else? Several times in most cases. None of the names are the same. Why do organisations like CGNU (Commercial Union merged with Norwich Union) change their names to meaningless Latin almost medical sounding names? Is it because they look and sound good? Of course not, it is because the old names had liabilities and outstanding promises to keep. The new names are chosen to anonomise the promise and to anaesthetise the punters.

I have boxes of notices and supposedly useful information about initiatives by City people in relation to my pensions not to improve the performance of my funds but to either get their greasy mits on some of it for themselves or to relinquish their duty for making it perform fit for purpose.

I am talking reality.

You industry insiders are talking of "modern pensions" as if there is something new under the sun for the OP to consider. New labelling and packaging sure, but the same shifting sands beneath it, and and breathtaking gall now by the City people in constantly exploiting ways to take our money while it is in their trust. Why would I move my money into another inevitably crooked deal?

Aegis talks of the FTSE going down 15% in 2 months - does that mean everyone is a loser? I am sorry, but if that is what I am supposed to infer, that is such an ignorant analysis. For every loss there is a gain taken somewhere. Who is gaining? Why are my pension funds not fleet of foot and gaining in a falling market? Because they are not designed to. They are designed so that on the other side of the Chinese Walls where my funds are managed, the City insiders can manipulate the markets for their own book, and then back on my side of the Chinese Wall I then get a notice which says your funds have "regrettably have taken another hit this year so your funds have gone backwards and unfortunately we have still had to levy our normal charges".

I have met some of these people. They cannot believe their luck that we as a public tolerate it like spooked sheep running from corner to corner in a slaughterman's field, not knowing quite what will happen next.

Never mind Jan Ludvic Hoch and family's Daily Mirror sting in the 70s and 80s, there have been some absolute horror stories played out in the last decade resulting in the demise of our pensions played out right under the noses of government regulators. The government still keeps suggesting we need to save for our pensions (I don't deny that), but still points to industry licensed "pension providers" as the means to do it and has locked our money in with these untrustworthy organisations for even longer. Unbelievable.

dunstonh

I am sorry dunstonh, but how dare you and the other apparent industry insiders suggest that I could possibly know what funds I am supposed to choose when I do some kind of annual post-mortem on the shrapnel that passes for my pension fund?

I never suggested you should. However, there are many out there that do. You could say, how dare you for suggesting that there are people who dont.

You have a choice. You either pick the funds and expect them to run within their remit or you get someone else to pick the funds. Its very simple. You or someone else. If you dont use someone else then you take on the responsibility.

This is especially so when every single one of my no less than eight separate funds has been either taken over, or switched "automatically" or "wound up" or managed by someone else? S

So what? Change happens and when it does you adapt to it.

Why do organisations like CGNU (Commercial Union merged with Norwich Union) change their names to meaningless Latin almost medical sounding names?

What has that got to do with anything other than cementing the point that you are tin hat merchant who prefers to whinge and complain rather than do anything about it.

You industry insiders are talking of "modern pensions" as if there is something new under the sun for the OP to consider.

Thats because modern pensions are so much different to legacy ones.

New labelling and packaging sure, but the same shifting sands beneath it

This just highlights what has already been said about you. You dont know what you are talking about. I feel sorry for the inexperienced posters here who may fall for your opinions and believe you. Or worse still, perhaps you are being like this on purpose.

Why are my pension funds not fleet of foot and gaining in a falling market?

Because the funds you pick are designed to operate within a remit. If you want a different remit then change the funds. The funds cannot break their remit. If the FTSE is dropping and the fund has to invest in the UK stockmarket then it will remain in the UK stockmarket. It has no choice in the matter. If you want a more flexible investment strategy then move to a self balancing diverse fund or a portfolio fund with a wider remit.

there have been some absolute horror stories played out in the last decade resulting in the demise of our pensions played out right under the noses of government regulators.

No there hasnt. Equitable Life was the worst thing to happen to money purchase schemes. What others can you name?

I've been investing in funds for 16 years now. I'm running at 13% a year average. I am neither in the same funds I was invested in 16 years ago or the same provider or products. Things move on, things change and you need to adapt.

jem16

peterbaker wrote: »

So you can use a spreadsheet, jem. That's good.

Actually I used a calculator.

You've given an example based on a level 5% pa growth compounded on a monthly contribution of 3% on a monthly salary that equates to £25,000 pa.

But that's not based on rocket science. That's based on a pensions investment scenario that doesn't exist other than in illustrations.

The employer pays in £6,000 over 8 years in your example, and with luck (and a notional level 5% growth over the entire 8 years in question) maybe its worth £7,354 with investment growth. Maybe it's only worth £5,000. Stuff happens. One of my other pensions turned £10,000 of employer only contributions into £5,000 in just 5 years.

For nothing you say. Ehm not really because the OP works for it as part of her remuneration package.

Yes she does - and if she didn't take it she wouldn't get it on her salary instead, would she?

I do say however that just because a non-contributory arrangement exists, it should not be taken as any pointer to where to put the OPs own additional savings.

Dunstonh already made that point back in Post 2.

I am sorry dunstonh, but how dare you and the other apparent industry insiders suggest that I could possibly know what funds I am supposed to choose when I do some kind of annual post-mortem on the shrapnel that passes for my pension fund?

The suggestion was that you care enough for your pension funds that you either find out what it's all about yourself or you pay someone else to review them for you. That someone is not the fund manager whose job it is to monitor his own fund and not your whole pension.

Aegis talks of the FTSE going down 15% in 2 months - does that mean everyone is a loser? I am sorry, but if that is what I am supposed to infer, that is such an ignorant analysis. For every loss there is a gain taken somewhere. Who is gaining? Why are my pension funds not fleet of foot and gaining in a falling market?

And you accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about?

peterbaker

Well I take it all back, dunstonh, if I ever chose an IFA it would not now be you. You seem to have hardened over the years. As you say, things change. Do you thesedays get a living from this forum?

Bully for you averaging 13% on your funds. You do work rather close to it all, afterall. So how have you done that when the notices us ordinary punters get each year have been bleating for years about the woes of this market or that?

Again you make my point.

As for responsibility, I believe in credit (or debit) where it is due. No one has ever told me that I have to take responsibility for my own pension funds except when they were telling me that they were bowing out. I made it plain to them that they bowed out at their peril. Without exception the people that sold the original deals told me that they did the managing.

It's all very convenient over the space of less than a generation to have put it about that:
(a) Investments go down as well as plummet
(b) Pension mortgages might be good - now that was a good one - where are they now?
(c) Woa ... Endowment horrors all over the shop ... but isn't my pension with the same companies??? Don't worry!
(d) Missold they were. What? Endowments. But he sold me my pension too ... told me it would do better than my NHS one.
(e) Ah yes, you are kind of right. Pensions missold. Isolated incidents. Rogue sellers.
(f) Pensions reform. Misseling was rife. Well don't tell anyone but it was deliberate plug-pulling by the boards but let's keep calling it misseliing. Now then ... Stakeholder - you too can be one just like the company you trusted with your money. Er whassat then?
(g) You now have an opportunity to manage your own pensions ... yeah stakeholder right? Erm no. But anyway watch out for our new online switching system - your policy will be live soon (they never were)
(h) You have the opportunity for a self-invested pension in more or less what you like - well there are limits and it isn't suitable for everyone. Who is it suitable for? Well it isn't quite clear but you can have one if you want to try it.
(i) Dontcha know SIPP's are flavour of the month? - Yeah but who to choose and are my funds big enough?
(j) Reattribution (a word that did not exist until the horrors of Pru AXA and Aviva played it out as their own invention to grab a chunk of our funds). Barrowloads full of 500 page documents drop through the letterbox reframing the simple twenty pages of contract we thought we bought. Whassat then? It's a bribe mate. Best take it and not ask too many questions. Just move on.
(k) July 2010. You're lazy. Why didn't you transfer your legacy pensions years ago?


I could go on, but no more today...


The industry stinks and I want some air.

Aegis

peterbaker wrote: »

I am sorry dunstonh, but how dare you and the other apparent industry insiders suggest that I could possibly know what funds I am supposed to choose when I do some kind of annual post-mortem on the shrapnel that passes for my pension fund? This is especially so when every single one of my no less than eight separate funds has been either taken over, or switched "automatically" or "wound up" or managed by someone else? Several times in most cases. None of the names are the same. Why do organisations like CGNU (Commercial Union merged with Norwich Union) change their names to meaningless Latin almost medical sounding names? Is it because they look and sound good? Of course not, it is because the old names had liabilities and outstanding promises to keep. The new names are chosen to anonomise the promise and to anaesthetise the punters.

I have boxes of notices and supposedly useful information about initiatives by City people in relation to my pensions not to improve the performance of my funds but to either get their greasy mits on some of it for themselves or to relinquish their duty for making it perform fit for purpose.

I am talking reality.

You are talking reality if you choose not to bother doing anything in reaction to new developments. That's your choice. Others of us have done much better in recent years because we choose to review our selections (whether ourselves or through a professional whose job it is to keep abreast of new developments). Again, if you can't be bothered to spend a few hours each year working out if your pension is still working well for you, then you have yourself to blame if you feel there are better options out there fore you that you're not a part of. You can always change investments within your existing policy or change policies altogether if you feel that you are being too "abused" where you currently are.

Why not be proactive and actually find a few pension funds that meet your criteria rather than sitting back and complaining about how badly your funds are doing.

You industry insiders are talking of "modern pensions" as if there is something new under the sun for the OP to consider. New labelling and packaging sure, but the same shifting sands beneath it, and and breathtaking gall now by the City people in constantly exploiting ways to take our money while it is in their trust. Why would I move my money into another inevitably crooked deal?

Sorry, but this isn't true. Pensions have changed considerably in fairly recent years so that if you can now think of a fund, share, bond or commodity that you'd like to invest in, you can do so through a pension of some sort. As such, it once again seems that the problem with your choice of pension funds ultimately rests with you and your unwillingness to review your situation and work out how to improve it.

Aegis talks of the FTSE going down 15% in 2 months - does that mean everyone is a loser? I am sorry, but if that is what I am supposed to infer, that is such an ignorant analysis. For every loss there is a gain taken somewhere. Who is gaining?

Those in short equity/long bond funds, at least over the short term.

Why are my pension funds not fleet of foot and gaining in a falling market? Because they are not designed to.

Indeed, you have bought in to what is presumably a blended fund with a fairly rigid mandate on what asset allocation it can take. The fund manager is undoubtedly doing his best to minimise losses and maximise gains within the confines of that mandate, but (i) managers aren't perfect and (ii) the mandate means they can't simply choose to go 100% into fixed interest when they think the equity markets are going to tank for a bit.

They are designed so that on the other side of the Chinese Walls where my funds are managed, the City insiders can manipulate the markets for their own book, and then back on my side of the Chinese Wall

Sorry, this sounds like nothing more than conspiracy theory nonsense.

I then get a notice which says your funds have "regrettably have taken another hit this year so your funds have gone backwards and unfortunately we have still had to levy our normal charges".

The charges are a percentage of the value of the fund, so your provider is disadvantaged if they deliberately cause your fund to go down in value. A truly silly notion.

Never mind Jan Ludvic Hoch and family's Daily Mirror sting in the 70s and 80s, there have been some absolute horror stories played out in the last decade resulting in the demise of our pensions played out right under the noses of government regulators. The government still keeps suggesting we need to save for our pensions (I don't deny that), but still points to industry licensed "pension providers" as the means to do it and has locked our money in with these untrustworthy organisations for even longer. Unbelievable.

Then (and I realise this has been stated a few times before and you've ignored it then too) take responsibility for your own pension. If you don't like pension funds, you don't have to use them. If you want to only trade commodities within your pension, you can do that. If you want to stick to cash, you can do that. Modern pension providers offer plans that range from a few low cost mutual funds right through to policies that can hold almost anything. Since you can invest in whatever you want, you can make sure you avoid all the stuff you don't like.

It comes full circle back to you not being bothered to check up on your pension for 8 years.

sandsy

This ongoing bickering really isn't helpful at all to the OP who simply wanted a bit of guidance on what to do/where to go - and has received really very little.

jem16

peterbaker wrote: »

As for responsibility, I believe in credit (or debit) where it is due. No one has ever told me that I have to take responsibility for my own pension funds except when they were telling me that they were bowing out. I made it plain to them that they bowed out at their peril. Without exception the people that sold the original deals told me that they did the managing.

Presumably from the sound of it, at no time did you take independent advice?

When you bought your house did your mortgage provider specifically tell you that you had to maintain it, see to repairs etc?

Or did you perhaps use your own common sense and realise that over 40 years you might just have to do something to make sure it didn't fall down around you?

(i) Dontcha know SIPP's are flavour of the month? - Yeah but who to choose and are my funds big enough?

Most of the IFAs on this forum were the ones who were advising against blindly following the latest fad as for most people they were more expensive.

Take a look back and see.

The industry stinks and I want some air.

Peter you sound like a very disillusioned punter who wants to blame someone rather than actually try and do something that might help improve the performance.

That seems a shame to me.

Aegis

sandsy wrote: »

This ongoing bickering really isn't helpful at all to the OP who simply wanted a bit of guidance on what to do/where to go - and has received really very little.

Thank you for your opinion. However, I disagree. The OP left saying the following some time ago:

Pilky wrote: »

Many thanks for all your help. We had a IFA that advised us about our mortgage so I think we will contact him again and see if he can help. I was just wondering if anyone sort of stood out from the rest when it came to pensions.

I am very sensible with money and have always been bought up to save save save but OH is useless with money so looking for something that we can't access until retirement - even though that seems a long way of still!

Many thanks once again.

Clearly they were happy with the advice given, and as there were unresolved issues with other parts of the discussion, those carried on after the original question had been resolved.

In any case, correcting the misinformation about pensions seems to be a justified activity in a pensions thread, especially considering the fact that others may read this in future. It's important to take away more than "pensions are all rubbish" from this sort of thread at the end of the day.