Friends Life Flexi Drawdown

Fiona_Hall

Hi, Having just turned 55 I have just contacted Friends Life to release 25% from my pension with the intention of leaving the rest alone. It is only about £5k but was told that Friends Life will not do this now but something will be coming in to place by them later on in the year.
Has anyone else out there had the same problem and can they do this.
Many thanks ( from a completely confused )
Fiona

gadgetmind

Friends Like have been particularly bad at adapting to the rapid changes over the last couple of years, which hasn't been helped by all of the M&S activities.

You options are to either wait or to move your pension to someone who does have this flexibility. Friends Life are building a new customer oriented platform, which they will be able to move people to so they can use the new flexibility, but I'd expect it to be late.

Interestingly, Friends Life are now part of Aviva, and Aviva *do* offer what you want!

dunstonh

Has anyone else out there had the same problem and can they do this.

Friends life are almost a closed company. There is no requirement for them to offer new business contracts. With the merger with Aviva, the new business focus will end up there and not at Friends who will no doubt lose the Friends name and logo in time.

So, you just transfer the pension to a provider that does offer the options you want.

SeniorSam

Arranging for someone like Hargreaves Lansdowne to transfer this for you would be simple. However, at 55 and taking out 25% of your £20,000 pension will leave you with a rather low pension in the future and all taxable. If you have no other pension arrangements, the next 30-40 years do not look too promising.

Sam

minty777

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/friends-life-pension-shock-firm-wont-offer-pension-freedom/ar-BBkFQFW?ocid=mailsignoutmd

dunstonh

minty777 wrote: »

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/friends-life-pension-shock-firm-wont-offer-pension-freedom/ar-BBkFQFW?ocid=mailsignoutmd

no big deal though. It just means they are no different from the majority of other closed companies and you just need to transfer it to a modern scheme.

gadgetmind

Yes, I don't know why MSN are making such a big deal of it. Yes, Friends Life are pants, but if a supermarket doesn't sell the brand of beans you like, then you shop elsewhere. Ditto with pensions.

dunstonh

I don't know why MSN are making such a big deal of it.

Media loves slagging off pensions. Facts are not important when it comes to pensions.

gadgetmind

I never know whether to put this down to malice, lack of research, laziness, or whatever.

RichandJ

gadgetmind wrote: »

I never know whether to put this down to malice, lack of research, laziness, or whatever.

I'd say all of the above with laziness (aka sheer ignorance) being the greater.

The malice probably comes from people who weren't good enough to be a trainee junior pension administrator & had to take up the lower status job of journalist instead.

minty777

someones comment on that piece:

so let me see if I can get this straight....you can pass a law given people the 'right' to draw down on their private pension....but because lo and behold pension companies suddenly see this is going to cost them big time, then they just say 'oh well we don't want to play this game' what a country......you should realise that once you have given them that money it isn't yours....its theirs, and if they wish to put it all on the 3.30 at kempton then you don't get a say in it.....:D


and

Seriously? What did you expect. You can't really complain about this as Friends Life has clearly taken notice of the mantra 'were all in this together.'.........Not the country..........the pension funds, the banks, the utility companies, the Tories..................the knighthoods, the subsidies, the backslapping, the handshakes, the deals, the lies , the end.