Pension problem, help please

triffid123

Hello folks, I have a bit of a problem with my works pension scheme and was looking for advice.
I have been paying into a work save pension plan for a number of years, you know the type, where my work match the same amount i put in up to a certain amount. Anyhow, the pot in there has grown over the years quite considerably but earlier this year my work announced that they were changing the pension type to a new product by the same pension provider as the new product can be invested in far, far more fund types than the existing old one.
Anyhow a broker was enlisted by my company to oversee the change and basicly we didnt have a choice of this transition, if we didnt accept the move, then our pension pots would be frozen or if i continued to pay into the old one, my employer would no longer match the monthly amount i put in.
I did my reserch before i accepted the new plan and reluctantly accepted (my old plan was making quite a bit of money for me, if it isnt broke why fix it?).
Anyhow, the broker gave us all a chioce,
1) to freeze our existing plan and start making fresh payments into the new plan, in effect having 2 pensions, one active (the new one), the other frozen (the old one) but still being invested.
or
2) move all the money from my old pot to my new plan so that my new plan would start with the the full amount i had saved and the old plan would be closed, having only one pension

I had to send off a decleration sheet signed, to say this is what i wanted, and i opted for this, i figure it is better to have all my eggs in one basket in this case and have a larger pension than 2 with one eventally being small compaired to the other one when i retire. We were told that we only had a certain time to do this and after this time it could not be transfered, all transfers would take place on the 1st of this month.

Anyhow, i sent off the signed form 3 months ago after 1 month of doing checks and was months in advance of the cut off date for this and i even called then a week later to confirm that the broker had received the signed acceptace sheet which they said they had.

I was on holiday until 5 days ago and all this had left my mind until yesterday when i remembered about it and checked online to see if it had went smoothly, but my pension page is now showing as i have 2 pensions, exactly what i did not want, obviously im a little concerned as i know the transfer date has been and gone.

Is it possible to manualy (by phoning my pension provider) combine these pensions to the new one or am i stuck with 2 pensions now?

sorry for the long winded explination, any help is appreciated, cheers.

bendix

I don't know.

Why don't you call the pension provider and ask them? Wouldn't that strike you as the obvious thing to do?

Incidentally, what is the problem with having two pensions? If you have one for 100k and one for 10k, or you have just one with 110k, you still have 110k in your pension pot at the end of the day.

dunstonh

Is it possible to manualy (by phoning my pension provider) combine these pensions to the new one or am i stuck with 2 pensions now?

Unlikely.

You should phone the administrator/adviser handing the scheme and ask them.

It may be that they were waiting for the new scheme to be set up and in force before the transfers were being done. It may be an error. The administrator/adviser will know or be able to find out.

atush

I would not worry about having 2 pensions. The key questions are the charges on each going forwards, and the funds available to invest in. If you were happy with the old one, there is no problem leaving it there.

Call the admins and ask if they got your paperwork and what is happening.