What to do about my pension

Spendless

Hi

I wondered if someone could give me advice?

Back in 1990 when i was 23 i took out a private pension and opted of Serps.
The company i worked for didn't have a pension scheme

In 1991 i changed jobs and in 1992 bercame eligible for their works pension which was non-contributory. As you were not allowed both a private pension and a works one (at this time or so i was told). I changed the money i paid into a private pension into free standings AVCs to the works pension, stopping the AVCs in 1994 when i bought my own place and needed every available penny.

I was made redundant in Dec 1997 from work and have only bitted and bobbed at part time and temp jobs since so have done nothing with a pension.

I am currently a married SAHM with kids of 5 and 2. It is unlikely i will work until the youngest is at full-time school and probably only part-time after that.

I have no idea how to sort out the bits of pensions i have, what to do about me having contracted out of Serps. Do i need to find an IFA to go through all this with?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Best_Investor

I would recommend speaking to an IFA. They will be albe to sort out the various schemes you have and ensure you get a competitive scheme. Depending upon the size of your pension funds they may not have to charge you a fee for the davice and the work involved. If you know a pension IFA then have a chat. <Edited by board guide to remove advertising>.

Hope this is useful.

roger56

The IFA is best, but one point make sure you pay up your National Insurance for each year you were "bitting" and "bobbing". This will secure your state pension. Class 2 or 3 are probably appropriate, see here for NI details:
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/benefits/national_insurance_contributions_and_contributory_benefits/index/life/benefits/national_insurance_contributions_and_contributory_benefits.htm

And get yourself a state pension quote to see what you have secured so far:
http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/atoz/atozdetailed/rpforecast.asp#cani

EdInvestor

Hi Spendless,

Am I right in thinking you have

a) a frozen works non contributory final salary pension which also contains your contracted out pension for the time you worked there

and

b)an FSAVC which contains your earlier contracted-out money from the previous job?

If so, no need to worry about a) but tell us a bit more about b).

What company is it with, how much is it roughly and what fund is it invested in?

Agree with roger56 that you should also check out the state of play with the state pension.

dunstonh

an FSAVC cannot contain protected rights.

Older pensions can have higher charges. However, they can also have guarantees which are not present on current schemes. A range of questions need to be asked of the provider to allow a full and proper analysis to take place. A transfer analysis showing projections on the exisitng and modern plans can also take place and generally, if there are no guarantees and the charges are lower on the modern plans, then moving/combining them into a SIPP/PPP or SHP can be appropriate.

You don't need an IFA to do this but this is one particular area that a bit of pensions knowledge is useful and knowing what needs to be compared. Professional software is often used in these calculations because providers do not always use the same projection rates making it hard to compare like for like based on what they provide.