advice on my pensions

jobdone1

I am at a loss as to what to do.

I have three final salary pensions two of which are frozen due to employment change.

The two that are frozen have 5 years each of payments from wages into them one has just come through with a transfer balance of around £6k the other would be about the same.

My current final salary pension has had payments for the last 7 years of around £160 p/ 4 weekly payments, plus employers contributions.

If i transfer the other two into the live scheme would it benefit me.

Any advice would be appreciated p.s i am mid 30s so have paid into to all three schemes since the age of 18.

Linton

I assume your three pensions are with different employers and cannot simply be transferred in terms of years.

You need to check is whether your new pension will accept the transfer-in and the number of extra years you would be able to purchase for the transfer values. You may well find that transfer-in is not allowed or the extra years are less valuable than the ones you would be selling.

Also note that your old pensions are not frozen - they will continue to rise with inflation.

jobdone1

Linton wrote: »

I assume your three pensions are with different employers and cannot simply be transferred in terms of years.

Yes all three are with different employers the £6k one said i would have an annual pension of around £500 with current projections.

The other pension gives me no feedback on how this is doing and has not done so for the last 8 years. I made contact with then today and they have the correct address and when asked for a transfer value they asked for me to get my current pension holders to write to them for a value. Very strange when the other writes to me every year.

I have paid around £20k into pension from wages in the last 18 years and then employers contribution on top of that but after all this time it still baffles me.

rpc

jobdone1 wrote: »

Yes all three are with different employers the £6k one said i would have an annual pension of around £500 with current projections.

How much would this buy you if you transfer to your current pension? If more than £500, do it. If less than £500 then don't.

The other pension gives me no feedback on how this is doing and has not done so for the last 8 years.

How it is doing is largely irrelevant to your benefits, as it is final salary. What benefits did you accrue? Again, compare these to what the transfer would buy you in your current scheme.

Linton

[

jobdone1 wrote: »

Yes all three are with different employers the £6k one said i would have an annual pension of around £500 with current projections.

The other pension gives me no feedback on how this is doing and has not done so for the last 8 years. I made contact with then today and they have the correct address and when asked for a transfer value they asked for me to get my current pension holders to write to them for a value. Very strange when the other writes to me every year.

I have paid around £20k into pension from wages in the last 18 years and then employers contribution on top of that but after all this time it still baffles me.

In valuing a final salary scheme how much you or your employer pay in is of little relevance, what is important is the guarantee of retirement income that you have acquired.

Suggest you talk to your new employer's Pension department, tell them what you are thinking of doing and see if they will get a quote for you giving number of years purchased for the contents of your old pensions. There is no way anyone on this board can sensibly discuss your situation until you get some real figures.

jobdone1

Ok thanks so an example if i have paid in say 10 years to both schemes and my current pension scheme say they will extend my pension years by the same time scale its then worth doing but if they offer much less then it would not be worth considering???????

jobdone1

just been in contact with my current pension scheme and the will give me a free no obligation quote to transfer the schemes in to buy me more years into the pension that i currently have so in my view buying more years has got to be a good thing.

rpc

It depends what those years are.

There is no point in transferring a £500 per annum pension if it is only going to buy you £300 in the current scheme. 10 years membership in one scheme is not the same as 10 years in another, even if you get a year-for-year transfer. Each year will have bought you a certain amount of pension and that is what you need to know. Forget years and look at the cash (and that's before we start looking at death benefits, inflation uprating, etc).

Linton

rpc wrote: »

It depends what those years are.

There is no point in transferring a £500 per annum pension if it is only going to buy you £300 in the current scheme. 10 years membership in one scheme is not the same as 10 years in another, even if you get a year-for-year transfer. Each year will have bought you a certain amount of pension and that is what you need to know. Forget years and look at the cash (and that's before we start looking at death benefits, inflation uprating, etc).

Also, any transfer will increase in value as your salary increases beyond inflation over time (hopefully). Your old pensions remain linked to your inflation adjusted salary when you left.

So its not necessarily a simple calculation, but because of the salary link, other things being more or less equal, there is a good chance that a transferred year will be better than a non-transferred year.

jobdone1

OK so lots of complicated choices, What i am mindful of is getting bad independent advice because as we all know this does happen.

Linton

jobdone1 wrote: »

OK so lots of complicated choices, What i am mindful of is getting bad independent advice because as we all know this does happen.

And you think advice from a random group of unknown people on the net who no things about your detailed circumstances will be better? At least you can sue a regulated advisor. Hopefully the results of the quote with a few simple calculations on your part should make the comparison pretty clear.