Clueless on Pensions

kidmugsy

Cotta wrote: »

I know this sounds like a stupid question but where on my account do I find out what the investment is?

I don't know. But I'd guess that if you just ignored your account and went to their website you might find out what the investment consists of.

kidmugsy

Here we are:
http://www.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=AMFD8&univ=P

Cotta

kidmugsy wrote: »

Here we are:
http://www.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=AMFD8&univ=P

That's the legal and general one that is no longer topped up.

My pension with Aegon that is currently contributed to is in a fund called Univ Lifestyle Col.

princeofpounds

Legal and General - Valued at £7900.

This means that the investments held in this pension account are worth £7900 today.

This consists of two options (a) View your contributions summary and (b) View your investment summary.

The contributions summary tells you how much money you have been putting in (useful information for tax and to check they received it!).


The investment summary tells you where the money in the account is invested.

Within A it advises 25.39% is regular contribution and associated with "Global Equity Fixed Weights 50:50 index PMC 3 (2000.60)" and Transfers in contribution £5879.03, "Global Equity Fixed Weights 50:50 index PMC 3".

Your description here is a little confused, but it sounds like all it is saying is that the money you put in came from a couple of different sources (ongoing contributions and a transfer in, perhaps from a previous scheme or something).


It also tells you that the contributions have been going into something called 'Global Equity Fixed Weights 50/50 index'.

[Within B it advises "View your investment summary" which again states Global Eqty Fixed Weights 50:50 Indx (PMC) 3 £7,879.63.

It is no surprise if all your contributions have been going into it that your investments consist entirely of this product.

Can someone explain what this means and if I should do something with it?

You should consider three basic things:


1) What is this 'Global 50/50' investment you have bought, and should you stick with it?
2) What sort of fees does the pension provider and the investment charge, and should you move the investment and/or the pension on the basis of that.
3) Also is it worth moving the pension for administrative ease?


Kidmugsy kindly gave you a link to show you what the investment is.


http://www.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=AMFD8&univ=P

That's the legal and general one that is no longer topped up.

Fine, but you still own it and you need to know if it is appropriate.


Superficially there doesn't appear to be too much wrong with the investment. It's relatively low cost (0.2% per year - check you get the same rate! It can depend where you bought it), is invested in equity (appropriate given your age) and in particular in a mix of UK and Global equity (which is reasonably diversified and appropriate for most people). You probably want to look a bit more carefully than I just did, given it is your money, but there is nothing alarming from the basics.


So you also now need to find out how much the pension provider, L&G, is charging you. That should be in your documentation somewhere.

Pension 2 (This is live and I currently pay part of my salary into it)

It's with Aegon and valued at £5700.

This is with the Universal Lifestyle Collection, and I hold 3,389.36 valued at 169.770 each. I know very little else about this one and could really use some advice.

Similar process.


Look in your documentation to see how much Aegon charge (and you can always contact them if you have not retained the documents).



A quick google shows you are invested in this:


https://extranet.secure.aegon.co.uk/static/sxhub/pdf/client-pen-universallifestyle.pdf


Check how much they are charging you on the investment - the information on this factsheet says 1%, you may differ slightly.


Reading the sheet tells you that you are largely invested in a passive fund which (with some more googling) holds up to 85% equity and the rest in fixed income. But it has some active funds in it too, which mostly seem to move investments between different asset classes. When you approach retirement, the product shifts you into much less risky investments, but that's not relevant now.


So this is a more complex fund-of-funds product (which I am not keen on). The charge is higher. You need to investigate if they are charging fees on the underlying funds or if that is included in the main fee.


The main fee is also quite high for a simple investment; you can see the L&G product was doing something similar for much less.


Having seen some aegon stuff before, I think this is something they often do, they charge a minimum fee on the investment products they offer you which is often not competitive. But it might be that they put less charges on the pension product level, I don't know. Sure some of the posters are very familiar with the way they work.

green_man

Superficially there doesn't look too much wrong with your investments. The important thing is to keep paying in. You could also look at making additional payments if you can afford especially if you are a higher rate taxpayer.

Unless you want to get actively involved in the management and details of the funds you are in I would just leave them be for a few years. One thing to avoid is to keep switching in and out of funds if you think they aren't doing well, often funds may have bad years followed by good years. If you do decide to switch funds then initailly just amend the fund your payments are going to and leave the existing fund with its existing investments.

kidmugsy

It seems to me that the two different pensions complement each other pretty well. One (L&G) seems to be a cheap tracker fund, invested in equities (shares), 50% UK, 50% overseas. The more expensive one is an "active" fund that can move its fraction of equities up and down between 40% and 85%. For someone your age that all seems OK.


P.S. The nature of investing in equities is that they fall down and jump up quite a bit. So don't get fidgety and keep checking their values. Either decide that there's a great market crash imminent and move the investments into (say) a cash fund, to await the bargains available after a crash, or just leave them be and cast an eye at your statements annually. Or even pursue one policy with one pension, and the other with t'other. What you mustn't do is be appalled by a market crash and sell your equities then. If it becomes too late to sell 'em, keep 'em.

atush

Cotta wrote: »

5% contributions from my salary of which my employer puts in 10%, I just need to know if everything is on track at present.

at 31 with 15% going into a pension you are doing OK.

Do you have emergency cash savings and are you using your S&S isa allowance?

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

Company pensions are good, particualarly as the employer puts in a good chunk, but beware, company pension funds can be dipped in to by the companies when they need to raise capital (well they did in the past, whether that still applies with the new regulations I wouldn't know) ....... remember what Maxwell did to the pension funds under his wing!!!!!!

kidmugsy

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote: »

company pension funds can be dipped in to by the companies when they need to raise capital (well they did in the past, whether that still applies with the new regulations I wouldn't know)

It never has been a risk with DC schemes, as far as I know. The money is with L&G, Aegon, and so on. Can you give me an example of "dipping in" in the past?

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote: »

....... remember what Maxwell did to the pension funds under his wing!!!!!!

Nothing subtle: he stole share certificates. Still, we don't have any great socialist magnates running large companies at the moment, do we?

atush

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote: »

Company pensions are good, particualarly as the employer puts in a good chunk, but beware, company pension funds can be dipped in to by the companies when they need to raise capital (well they did in the past, whether that still applies with the new regulations I wouldn't know) ....... remember what Maxwell did to the pension funds under his wing!!!!!!

Why would you post with decades old information?

This is no longer possible.