Pension Advise

grund1g

I am 60 years old and I have pension plans. During the last few years the values have decreased. Would it be best to cash them in now before they loose any more value or just sit and wait for the market to recover.

redbuzzard

What do you mean by "cash in"? You can cash 25% tax free but the rest you will have to take as taxed income one way or another.

Depends on your circumstances I guess. They must be comfortably ahead of where they were in Spring 2009 if they had exposure to equities and/or bonds?

Do you need the income? When you you plan to retire? What are your investment options in the pensions?

zygurat789

grund1g wrote: »

I am 60 years old and I have pension plans. During the last few years the values have decreased. Would it be best to cash them in now before they loose any more value or just sit and wait for the market to recover.

When was the last time you checked?
The stock market has hit some very high highs recently, you could be in for a nice surprise at the nex revaluation.

dunstonh

During the last few years the values have decreased.

Why? There have been no issues over the last two years that would have seen the values decrease in any of the main sectors.

Would it be best to cash them in now before they loose any more value or just sit and wait for the market to recover.

You cannot cash in a pension. You can commence it but typically its better to wait until retirement. What markets are you invested in?

grund1g

Not to sure how the values could have increased on a statement dated 30/04/2012 my pensions were worth an average of £ 1,100.00 Less than they were worth on the statement dated 30/04/2011. The next statement should be due in May this year. Not to sure what the pension provider does with the money. Both pensions are with Nat West and I beleive the company is Aviva. I also have 2 small pensions with Sun Life and Canada Life and Another with Zuric.

redbuzzard

The rolled up return on the FTSE all shares index is about 17% for the last 12 months, so iit's not unreasonable to think they might have perked up a bit since then.

The FTSE did go down in the 12 months prior to that.

Aviva at least will probably tell you the current value over the phone if you call them - I did it 3 weeks ago, and am in the process of transferring a with profits pension into my SIPP, in the course of gathering up a few old bits.

sleepless_saver

redbuzzard wrote: »

What do you mean by "cash in"? You can cash 25% tax free but the rest you will have to take as taxed income one way or another.

If they are all very small and meet some other criteria too (see link) then you could cash them in, but that may not be the best thing to do.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/small-pen.htm

atush

I think you are missing some understanding/information here.

If you have a DC scheme, you have a retirement 'pot' of money. This money in all likelyhood should not have gone down recently, but up with the market. Depending on what you chose to invest in- what was that?

I assume you don't have a 'pot' of just 1100 quid, but more likely have been given a projection of annual income. Which is based on today's rates and any assumptions they care to give you (such as rising rather than level and 50% spouse benefits etc). This oucl mean your projection is all wrong in that you might want a level annuity with no spousal pension so your inital payment could be twice as high or more.

Not that you Have to buy an annuity.


So go back, look into it, and get back with the real facts.