Annuity and IFA queries

littlegrebe

Scottish widows have written to my husband with 3 choices on a form for his pension next month:

1Take Scottish Widows annuity and cash

2 annuity transferred to another provider

3 annuity transferred to another provider with tax free cash supplied by SW

Scottish Widows says they will wait until we make a decision but as he is still working we do not really need an annuity yet.

Are there likely to be any other options besides just leaving it with SW?
Another part of the letter say we can "take your benefits as an open market option" We had thought that we would be able to perhaps use income drawdown eventually as pension value is about £225k

I intend to see an ifa but would like to know a little before I go.

Local ifas have J04 and J05 qualifications. Is this adequate or should I travel to a large company?

Lastly I presume ifas will provide a cost estimate but could anyone give me an any sort of approximation of the fees I could expect?

dunstonh

Are there likely to be any other options besides just leaving it with SW?

Possibly.

Local ifas have J04 and J05 qualifications. Is this adequate or should I travel to a large company?

Forget J04 (and its replacement R04). J05 is the key one here. Larger companies are not nessarily better or worse. A small company where you see the company or director could well be better as you dont have to worry about staff turnover and owner/partner/director advisers will be concerned about reputation and compliance costs (if mis-sale costs come out of their own pocket, it focuses the mind). larger firms employ more advisers. Employee advisers may not have the freedom owner/partner/director advisers have and there may be greater turnover in staff. They will often have the resources for more glossy material and better presentation tools than the smaller firms.

Lastly I presume ifas will provide a cost estimate but could anyone give me an any sort of approximation of the fees I could expect?

City locations tend to cost more than rural. Wealth management firms tend to price better for larger amounts and worse for small amounts (note their definition of large and small can be interesting - I took on a £250k case last year that had been turned away from another firm for being too small). £1000-£2000 initial set up with 0.5% to 1% pa. is the typical range you would expect to come across depending on what services you are after.