Pension Freedom

nandrews

My pension is a company defined contribution scheme.
I haven't received any offers from the insurance company in relation to the new pension options. I imagine they would want me to maintain the status quo!
The 'free' summary that the IFA gave suggested a reasonable improvement would be had by combining both investing some of pension pot and also keeping a proportion for an annuity.
He did say that, providing I accepted the £1k report, that fee would be offset against the income it would obtain from my pension. But I just saw that as a different way for him to take the £1k.

Thanks
Nigel

xylophone

Might it be a good idea to approach the current provider to establish what options are offered?

dunstonh

The first wanted to know a lot of details about my current expenditure and expectations for pension. Which seemed unneccessary when I merely wanted to maximise my pension income.

You want advice about a product that has variations in income levels but find it strange that an ADVISER would want to know about your income and expenditure?

How is the adviser able to provide advice without knowing such things?

The second worked with the basic details I gave him and presented a summary of his 'free' findings. But he told be the full report would cost me £1000, which was rather a shock. Though I obviously expected to pay him for his work. But the £1k was to be ontop of that!

£1000 seems good value. Unless its a small pot, that is likely to be cheaper than buying on DIY basis.

nandrews

Thanks. The £1k came as a bit of a shock since he had not mentioned it before, only the ongoing fees for managing the investment plan.
As I say the 2nd IFA only asked for basic info on income. The first also wanted to know a detailed breakdown on current expenditure food, energy, taxes etc. He seemed to think he had to find a solution to meet my expenditure in the future based on current needs. I was simply asking to find a way to maximise the potential from the pension, however that might be arrived at.
I have investments and so I am not relying on the pension to give me a living allowance.
Thanks
Nigel

SilverArrowUK

Well after waiting for a couple of weeks and being fobbed off I thought I will ring them and see what's going on, I rang friends life and blow me they said they could not find my pension on their screens, so they told me to ring my company up and they said yes you still have one maybe because we closed it down as your off sick and we will start you on a new one when you come back, now here's where it gets interesting.
I asked them about these forms that friends life were waiting on being reprinted and they said we haven't done any reprints or we haven't been asked to, I explained that 2 weeks before that all i was getting was these forms were with the layers and they were all being reprinted, the guy then said no you just do a deferment form and then we sent it to your HR they send it back and then we contact the new company and then they deal with it. I asked they why have you been telling me all this other stuff of course they denied it all.

I asked them could you sent me a form, he said yes by post I said no what about email, then I can print it out sing it and scan it in and then send it back, he said yes well will accept that, so he said I will sent you one now, I waiting for over an hour and no form came, so rang them back and got a girl this time that said I will find out what's happening and then i will sent it to you what's your number, so again I gave her my number and then I gave me email addy.

another 2 hours no phone call no email so, yes again I had to ring back and got the 1st guy i had spoken to and asked him where was the email, he said no one's sent it as yet as we had to check on something. he said you will get it by the close of business today, strangely enough it came about 10 mins after that, so did that sent it to Our HR and then said to them I have been waiting weeks to get this sorted out can you so it ASAP lease and they said it will be dealt with before the end of the month which knowing our HR will be the last day of the month.

It just gets me is this is simple to do why do we as people have to keep ringing them to sort it out and jumping through hoops all the time, the other company said as I rang them to let them know what was going on they said we have been sending friends life email and no one's getting back to us, I said now once you get the forms off them and I would ask them can they do it by email they said it would take a week to get done and then we can transfer your money over, I did this in apr and now were in the middle to the late part of May. If I did my job like this I would be in the office for it I wonder why these are not?

SilverArrowUK

Still waiting yet again

why is this process so lengthy and takes this much time to sort out is beyond me I wonder if anyone else on here is getting the run around with these companies and it's not just me?

This is my story I rang the pensions and friends life they said that they were waiting on my compnay to get some new forms to them, then the next thing was they were having a meeting with them, I then go hold of the pensions department who it took them for ever and a day to get the deferment form to me and they have said once we get the form from your HR we can get things moving I have waited now 3 weeks since i sent the form back to them and they have now said it goes to payrol and they stop your payments, but I have told them in the last months pay which was april i didnt have any monies taken out and then they said well we do the run in the middle of the month which was this month, and they still dont have it.

so thats another 4 weeks till they do the next run and they said we will send you out how much its worth and i said i already have that, they said we have to sent you yet another one and then what your options are, I said i know what i want to do, i asked how long is this going to take they have said another 4 - 6 weeks, this is now looking more like 13 weeks to get this sorted out.

I ask myself this question which i find odd when you buy an annuity it takes 3 weeks, so why is it taking 13 weeks or more just to transfer it to another company, its your money and you can't get at it its like they dont want you to have YOUR money

mania112

Admin across the board has been dire since 6th April in my experience.

Aviva have been the worst for me, and Friends Life is now part of the Aviva group, so would make sense you're having a bad experience with them.

As we approached the end of the last tax year (and therefore the introduction of Pension Freedom) I was amazed at how little the providers knew about it, and many going into the final week of 2014/15 didn't know if they were going to offer Flexi!

[Deleted User]

mania112 wrote: »

Admin across the board has been dire since 6th April in my experience.

Aviva have been the worst for me, and Friends Life is now part of the Aviva group, so would make sense you're having a bad experience with them.

As we approached the end of the last tax year (and therefore the introduction of Pension Freedom) I was amazed at how little the providers knew about it, and many going into the final week of 2014/15 didn't know if they were going to offer Flexi!

Hi Mania112

I'm sorry to see you are having issues with Aviva, if I can help at all please email me at social@aviva.co.uk with details of what has happened and for security purposes your

Full name
Date of birth
Post code
Policy number

If you could also include your MSE username in your email it will help me link your MSE post and email together.

I look forward to hearing from you so we can get this all resolved.

Kind regards

Dave

jem16

Aviva_company_representative wrote: »

I look forward to hearing from you so we can get this all resolved.

Should be interesting - as he's an IFA, do you want the details of all his clients with Aviva?

SilverArrowUK

seems they can try and sort yours out but me they dont seem to take any notice of mine:(