Tiny Stakeholder Pension Transfer

InsertWittyName

Hi.

I have a tiny (~£500) Virgin stakeholder pension that I'm looking into transferring because it has limited options and is somewhat expensive.

I opened the pension about 13 years ago, invested £200 and haven't touched it since.

My company pension is healthy, but the charge for transferring the Virgin pension into it was about £500, so no real point!

I'm looking for the following, ideally:

• Free/cheap to transfer.
• No further contributions required.
• Low TER.

My attitude to risk for this is very high - It's only £500 and I'd like to see how far I can grow it. If I lost it all I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

InsertWittyName

I noticed that some pension providers have a minimum transfer amount of £1000, so I could potentially make a one off payment of say £600 to my Virgin pension and then transfer it to one of these providers.

Anyone have any input into this and my original question please?

dunstonh

Stakeholders have a £20 minimum. With that small amount you are not going to get access to the real cheap schemes.

Plus, in all honesty, is it worth moving it from Virgin? yes, the Virgin stakeholder pension is not very good but charges are only £5 a year. You may be able to get that down to £3 a year. Not worth the bother. Plus, it doesnt really matter what it is invested in really as the value is so low.

InsertWittyName

Thanks dunstonh, I appreciate your reply.

expressduck

I agree with dunstonh, why bother moving it at all.......

Loughton_Monkey

My advice would be to double-check the "health" of your total pension provision. If it's definitely enough for you to live on, then fine. But if not, you should consider taking out another one (paying a reasonable amount in each month) to top it up (and save/defer tax).

Were this to be the case, then start a new one, and then, at your leisure, transfer the Virgin one into that. Otherwise, I also agree that trying to move it is really not worthwhile, despite it being a lacklustre pension.

Wine_of_the_World

Could I ask why the general consensus is that Virgin is a poor pension? I think its recent performance has been poor – but I thought so had most pensions!
Sorry very much a novice at this!

dunstonh

Could I ask why the general consensus is that Virgin is a poor pension?

Extremely poor fund selection (impossible to have diverse investments on it - you cant get a balanced portfolio for example). The default option is actually higher risk than the average consumer's risk profile if you go by the FOS or FSA opinion on what they believe the average consumer is. If an IFA recommended the option, it could potentially be classed as a mis-sale due to poor quality investing.

Very expensive for a non-advice product (its more expensive than using an advice product).

I think its recent performance has been poor – but I thought so had most pensions!

Pensions do not perform. The investments you hold inside of your pension perform. Virgin has three funds. Top end providers have over 20,000 investment options. Most retail stakeholders (which are largely obsolete nowadays bar a few exceptions) offer 20-40 funds. The lower charged personal pensions tend to offer 100-1500 funds.