Nuvos and Existing Stakeholder 28 February 2011 at 6:02PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning 2 replies 549 views

WRabbit

I'm confused, and probably should go and see an IFA, but thought I'd try here for some words of wisdom.

I took a stakeholder pension out 6 years ago (I'm 36). It was a bit of a panic buy as my 30th was looming and I wanted to start a pension plan before I reached that milestone. I'm paying about £170 a month into it (including tax relief).

I'm about to change jobs and will be able to join the Civil Service Nuvos scheme. So that seems a better option than my current stakeholder. But I'm confused as to what I should do with my stakeholder. Should I just stop adding to it, top it up with a smaller amount each month or is there some way of transfering it into Nuvos? I've read the leaflets on the Civil Service website and they seem to suggest a transfer is possible - but the examples they give are from employer schemes, not stakeholders.

JOHNGT

Join Nuvos. It is a defined benefit scheme and the overall cost of what you get is probably worth several times the contribution you have to pay.

Re the stakeholder - if you transfer this into Novos it will buy additional pension (added pension). There should be a ready reckoner telling you how much pension you would get for your transfer value.

The main alternative is continue to save through your stakeholder you have or with the stakeholder that the civil service has (which might have lower charges than yours). If you decide to save in the stakeholder available via the civil service you can transfer your current stakeholder into that one.

Finally you can save in a money purchase AVC (similar to a stakeholder but will have different tax-free cash rules).

WRabbit

Thanks John. I'll get more info soon, but I found a calculator on the web that gave me the purchase value of my fund, so I'll need to compare that with what the existing stakeholder fund is predicting.

Joining Nuvos is a definite, and I'll review the charges and info on the Civil Service stakeholder and look at possibly moving my existing one to it if I decide to keep it seperate from Nuvos.