Gmp

PensionTech

I can't help but think that this is getting away from what the OP is asking.

OP, you may ask for a transfer value to be calculated free of charge, and you are not held to it. Your pension scheme will not transfer your benefits unless you send in forms explicitly asking them to do so, after you receive the transfer value. Plenty of people ask for transfer values regularly and do nothing with them - it's quite normal. But you can usually only ask for one free transfer value a year, so do bear that in mind.

Getting a financial adviser to look at the value is a good idea because they will be able to give you advice on whether they think you should transfer it or not, in light of your husband's health concerns. You should indeed be able to transfer it to another scheme where the benefits do not have to be paid in the form of GMP at 65. It is usually better to leave GMP where it is and have it paid out as a pension throughout retirement, rather than transferring it and taking it as a lump sum, but it always depends on your circumstances, and ill-health can be one of the things that sways it towards being better to transfer. You will, however, have to pay if you want proper, regulated financial advice (which is compulsory in some cases), and the cost of doing so might be disproportionately large depending on the value of your husband's benefits.

agarnett

PensionTech is of course right about getting a formal CETV quotation.

We are plucking at straws here because we have not been given the pension figures, don't know the scheme, the length of service, final salary on leaving and many other variables.

If the CETV is indeed just £30,000, then it appears the bulk of it might fairly rapidly taken tax free if there was no other income. But, and it is a big but, if the GMP promise within the pension is worth far more than the CETV offered, it might be mad to cash it in just because it is there.

The OP says she has a job with a decent pension expectation of her own. Perhaps that means that as a couple they are good for extended borrowing.

She doesn't say if there is a mortgage or if there is the possibility of borrowing the desired cash until the husband is 65.

As jamesd on this board so often reminds us, with loan interest rates as low as they are, it is often better to extend borrowing instead of cashing a good investment like a final salary pension, and it is often even worth deferring taking pension beyond the normal date and borrowing to cover living expenses instead because the deferral increases are worth more than the cost of borrowing whilst deferring!

If the CETV is really as low as £30,000, I would suggest getting a formal written CETV if that has not already been done, then sharing more detail with this board, thereby learning a little before leaping into the arms of any FA who would likely treat £30,000 as an uninteresting sum, and his rate per hour as more of a priority.