Aegon pensions and fees

Paulie29

Hi
I've been to my IFA to sort out a pension.
I've been given to options both with Aegon.

Option one just tracks markets and has low running costs 0.95%.

Option two is a managed scheme and running costs of 1.60%

I would like to know if Aegon are good pension providers ?

And do the running cost seem about right.

I'm inclined to opt for the managed scheme as would hope it would give me a better return on my investment.

I would appreciate any advise you may have.

Cheers

Paul.

WobblyDog

I work for a fairly large company, and it provides a group stakeholder pension scheme, run by Aegon. The fees are 0.3%. I guess they are only that low because of economies of scale, and possibly because my employer tried to negiotate a good deal. I don't know whether 0.95% is a good deal for a single personal pension.

More generally, I don't favour actively managed funds, I'm not convinced that trying to beat the market is likely to work in the long term. I prefer cheap passive tracker funds.

Paulie29

Cheers for advise wobbly.

Did get the option of doing a 50/50 split of both pension plans so I suppose I could do that. It would reduce costs and I could see which would be the best plan to go into after a few years.

I was leaning towards a managed fund though as I was thinking it would give me a better return. Although I know little about pensions hence me posting on here.
Cheers

dunstonh

Group schemes are frequently cheaper (but not always) than individual schemes. Aegon's cheapest price clean is around 0.45% p.a. I suspect the 0.95% includes the IFA cost.

I don't know whether 0.95% is a good deal for a single personal pension.

It wont be the cost of the pension alone. It will be pension and IFA cost. It is cheaper than stakeholder.

FatherAbraham

Paulie29 wrote: »

I'm inclined to opt for the managed scheme as would hope it would give me a better return on my investment.

The Monevator website has an article about why investors might prefer passive investing: http://monevator.com/index-investing/

Other opinions are available.

Warmest regards,
FA

Paulie29

Hi thanks for advise so far guys.

I should have made it clear the IFAs 0.5% is included in the percentages I've given above.
Looks like more of you are recommending the passive fund.