Annuity Experience

EnglishSaver

Hello All, I am unable to find the thread to share experiences on Annuities so set up another.

I was approached by my existing pension provider about purchasing an annuity, after receiving my quote I asked the gentleman to give me more time as once an annuity is purchased it can NOT be returned exchanged etc.

So a few days after my pension provider came to the house I was cold called by a gentleman in Essex who made me aware that all Annuities were different and it was free for him to send an advisor from 'his books'.

I agreed to the appointment wasn't asked any personal info over the phone and he already had my address.

The gent that turned up confirmed everything I knew about Annuities explained how he purchased the appointment from the guy on the phone. After a fact find was completed he came back to me with another quote.

His quote meant I was being charged 2% more than my existing pension provider but would receive £400 more a year as an income.

As you can understand I didn't care I was being charged more as my income would be better regardless!

Hope this helps folks
English Saver

ermine

Well, I wish you all the best with your retirement income, but the way this is meant to work is you go to an independent financial adviser who can search the whole of the annuity market, getting the best quote for your specific circumstances (eg health status, age, requirement for inflation-indexing of the annuity). As the Pensions advisory service says

Check that the adviser is an authorised financial adviser, and is independent - not tied to a particular company.

Whereas this cold-caller seems to have focused on doing less badly than your original pension provider. Hopefully you did confirm he was independent. And authorised.

Otherwise what may have happened is one salesforce has sold you something that is a little bit better than the original salesforce. Hopefully there was no collusion between the two, offering you a small increment to deflect you from the possibly larger savings you might have made