How many pensions are you allowed?

dunstonh

I looked at a wide variety of the pensions available via Cavendish and the Aviva one seemed to give a good choice of funds with reasonable fees. ISTR 0.55% for a teeny pension like my wife's, which only has the basic £240pcm going into it.

£240pcm is personal pension territory and you would expect the PPPs to come in cheaper. That includes the aviva PPP which has greater fund based discounts.

You would also probably have been better with the HL SIPP or the Skandia PPP with funds at 0.2% to 0.3%.

if you had said £240 a year, then stakeholder is spot on. £240 a month though and PPPs come into play.

gadgetmind

She already has a Skandia pension, and the fees are way above 0.3%, but this was setup in 2005. I guess pensions are like savings accounts: you can't take your bloody eyes off them!

Regards £240 per year into a pension (or other retirement savings), that's a great way to have a retirement of raiding the bins outside supermarkets for out-of-date food. As it happens, I was doing exactly that yesterday, but it was out of choice rather than necessity, which makes a *huge* difference.

dunstonh

She already has a Skandia pension, and the fees are way above 0.3%, but this was setup in 2005. I guess pensions are like savings accounts: you can't take your bloody eyes off them!

Skandia Life pensions are more expensive than Skandia Investment Solutions. In effect, it is a bit like old savings accounts. In 2005, Skandia investment solutions was called Selestia and Skandia hadnt yet been bought by them (old Mutual).

Regards £240 per year into a pension (or other retirement savings), that's a great way to have a retirement of raiding the bins outside supermarkets for out-of-date food. As it happens, I was doing exactly that yesterday, but it was out of choice rather than necessity, which makes a *huge* difference.

You have got your head screwed on. Plenty do not. And it will be those that pay £20pm who then go on to whinge about the pensions later saying they were a waste of time as they didnt make any difference. Bin diving is certainly not something you would aspire to do!

Andy_L

CLAPTON wrote: »

why can't you get a pension from your employer?

+1 for that question.

I suspect that the OP isn't actually a public sector employee but works for one of the outsourcing companies (Capita SERCO etc) who have a public sector contract

jamesd

gadgetmind, what sort of investments is she using? that'll give some idea of whether a switch might be worthwhile or not.

Skandia charges depend in part on the IFA you buy from and how you buy. Normal fund trail commission is 0.5% so paying a fee at the start would eliminate that much from funds that normally charge 1.5%, less reduction or none from the very cheapest, though. Skandia is working on a new system and you could do worse than ping dunstonh or some other IFA to see what deal you could get on that or the current one with a fee paid instead of ongoing commission.

CLAPTON

Andy_L wrote: »

+1 for that question.

I suspect that the OP isn't actually a public sector employee but works for one of the outsourcing companies (Capita SERCO etc) who have a public sector contract

thank you but as I often say ; 'why speculate when you can know'
only the OP can tell us

JohnB47

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Never buy a pension from a High Street Bank.

Please explain. And if it's a horror story, how to remove oneself from such a pension and how/where to take any savings built up. (It's not for me mind, it's for a relative).

dunstonh

JohnB47 wrote: »

Please explain. And if it's a horror story, how to remove oneself from such a pension and how/where to take any savings built up. (It's not for me mind, it's for a relative).

Banks are typically the most expensive distribution channel. Their product charges tend to be at the high end of the scale. Their investment funds tend to be at the bottom of the performance tables. There is a general rule of thumb that when looking at investments, you disregard passive managed funds and bank funds as you know that more often than not they will be bad.

Banks also operate on a salesforce basis. That is no way to get advice as sales pressure can lead to the wrong product.

Some of the banks got into bed with known insurers to improve the situation. However, the pricing of those products was increased compared to the IFA version or the product was cut down with features or options removed. Also, the remit of the tied agents was not to portfolio plan or offer fund recommendations but to present funds applicable to your risk profile to you for you to choose. You may think they are making a recommendation but in reality you are choosing where to invest.

Lastly, IFAs account for 3/4 of all pension transactions. The best pension products are available via IFAs not tied agents.

Get an IFA to review the pension and they can do a cost/benefit comparison and arrange a transfer if required.

JohnB47

THanks for the extensive reply.

gadgetmind

JohnB47 wrote: »

THanks for the extensive reply.

There's a button for that, but I hit it for you. :-)