Generali Vision Plan Pension- 7 years in of 30. Get out now?

jimmyb78

I'm an expat who was sold this long term off shore product in 2008. I have been paying in £600 a mounth for the best part of 7 years. My fund has performed pretty poorly and is now only worth £40000 of the £45000 I have invested. A new IFA has calculated that I can do a full/partial surrender which will get me £25k back. I am torn over what to do. I understand my fees drop to .3 percent at the 10 year marker and I receive my 5% bonus at this time too.

Should I get out now? If I do I understand that I am effectively waving goodbye to that 20k which would be very painful. But is continuing to invest a worse option? I always did intend to do the full 30 years in order to use the plan as my pension but clearly I don't want to chuck 23 years more money into a product that will end up getting worse.

Any advice appreciated. I've read through a number of posts on the subject which say 'get out' but with my 10 year anniversary relatively close I'm unsure of the best course of action.

dunstonh

This type of plan went obsolete in the UK in the early to mid 90s. Other countries still retail them. They are typically high charge. Especially in the early years.

A new IFA has calculated that I can do a full/partial surrender which will get me £25k back. I am torn over what to do. I understand my fees drop to .3 percent at the 10 year marker and I receive my 5% bonus at this time too.

Is this a UK based IFA or someone overseas using the IFA tag but not under FCA regulation?

Have their done a cost/benefits analysis?

Sometimes exiting awful contracts is the cheaper option if the charges are going to continue over the long term and a cheaper option exists that can not only be cheaper going forward but also recover the exit charges within the agreed term (i.e. taking a step back to tack two forward).

Without figures, nobody can offer opinion other than to say its possible its a good idea but its possible it isnt. The other option is to hold until a future date when charges to exit are lower or a potential benefit has been paid. There is also the tax issue to consider as offshore products on surrender trigger a chargeable point which may result in tax being applied.

Jonbvn

As an aside, these investment plans are usually marketed by the infamous "world's largest independent international financial planning consultancy" (their words not mine).

A salutary lesson for anyone reading.

talexuser

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-2038619/TONY-HETHERINGTON-Publish-peril-warns-financial-giant-deVere-Group.html

jimmyb78

The partial surrender calculation was done by an IFA working for Globaleye, basically not a qualified IFA. I am thinking of sending it to a UK based IFA for a proper analysis. Perhaps it's worth the money to work out my best option.

The only future benefits as far as I can tell are the 10 year bonus and the drop to .3% in fees. But I have to continue to pay fees until the end of the plan which will presumably wipe out the remaining money.

gadgetmind

talexuser wrote: »

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-2038619/TONY-HETHERINGTON-Publish-peril-warns-financial-giant-deVere-Group.html

Fascinating, thanks!

Madam_Batterfly

Very negative personal experience. I agree with those saying you have to think twice before starting with Generali Vision (Generali Policy). If something is going wrong with your earnings (unemployment, salary decrease, etc) and you need to ask for Partial or Total encashment – first, you will lose a lot (up to 50% of your paid amount). Secondly, they will do everything not to pay you YOUR money. The deadlines are not respected, you have to push them to get any feedback, they are always not satisfied with documents provided, nobody can confirm what exactly is required for encashment. The requirements can differ every week. For Proof of Address they request such a huge and complicated document list that you feel you deal with Secret Service not an investment company. If you are not 100% sure you will be absolutely stable for the next 15 years min – you better run from their advisors. IFA - I found it absolutely useless. They are focused on headhunting. After that they do not care and do not support.

Lienhard

Same for me here. I had a very unpleasant experience with the whole process. First, the value of your investment are always lower than what you have paid. I had the plan for more than 10 years, always hoping that the money put in would AT LEAST been valued equal to the return. The "advisor" was virtually nowhere in advising, once he got his money when he sold me the contract, he stubbornly avoided any contact. I had to juggle myself to sell and buy shares, and being a total novice was not helping.
Right... So be it. Then came the 10 years anniversary, where Generali generously "gives" you 5 % of all the money invested. Well, I was expecting to see the 900 bucks surge in the account, but somehow it just appeared a mere 160 difference. I thought that might have been one of the recipient share that has got a boost. When I wrote to Generali, they told me that they have already paid the bonus. Attached was the breakdown of how it was "given": out of 900 dollars, I finally received 165 (!!!), the rest was spread into fees and various charges. That was it. I just cut off here.
Then the real struggle started: to get back the heavily reduced investment. Generali would not accept emailed document, and all original documents had to be certified by a sworn professional. Then when you spend a great time to get all the documents ready and sent by courier (they give a deadline of seven days from the last surrender value issued), they will come back with ONE EXCUSE AT A TIME: the address do not match. Ok sent one more certified document. Two weeks later: you need to send your certified passport copy of YOUR SECOND citizenship! (I have two nationality). Right. Done. Then wait for a couple of weeks I received this:

" [FONT=&quot]Our Head Office have just reviewed your surrender documents and we will require a revised proof of identity from you since the certification wording on your proof of ID does not meet our standard requirement."

Then they asked for a recent bank statement. Then wait again a week and they came back one more time: We cannot locate the person who signed the certified copies.
During all this time, you will never deal with the same person, each time is someone else who send you the emails, just to make it very difficult to complain.

End of the day, Generali is purely a legal bullying finance company, they do not care a iota of the customers, they just get your money for literally no service...
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Pincher

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07kxp7g/panorama-pension-rip-offs-exposed

To summarise, they tell you your pension is rubbish, use your pension freedom to move it into a SIPP, and invest in The Resort Group instead.


There is a book:

Sir Francis Drake: The Queen's Pirate (Yale Nota Bene)

Investment is basically not working for money, and hire a whole chain of pirates to rob other people, so they will bring you your cut.
If you don't sleep with them, to instil some loyalty, I have always wondered why would they bother paying you at all.

That's why I buy my own Buy To Let, and play the cut throat myself.

Pincher

Despite being infamous due to the Godfather movie, there are loads of companies with that name.

Maybe they are being ironic?