Should I have more than one fund?

Linton

When you put money in a bank, the bank owns that money. All you have is a promise by the bank that it will pay you back. So when a bank goes bust your money is at risk, which is why there is a goververnment backed guarantee.

Funds and platforms are different. When you put money into Charles Stanley and then invest it in VLS60 neither Charles Stanley nor Vanguard own your money. They merely have the right to manage it on your behalf. So were they to go bust your money should still be safe - probably the Charles Stanley customer base would be taken over by another platform and some other company will start to manage the Vanguard funds. The only downside for you would be a period of disruption whilst this was organised.

So it's difficult to give realistic situations where FSCS coverage would come into effect. Basically I guess we would be talking about gross negligence and/or fraud on a company-wide scale. This is very unlikely if you are investing with mainstream platforms and funds.

The coverage as I understand it is £50K for the platform, and £50K for the fund manager.

dunstonh

FSCS doesnt offer that much with regulated funds. There have been some fund failures where the FSCS kicked in but not many. All have been non-mainstream. In the mainstream is is unlikely to happen.

A bespoke portfolio can often mitigate it as you will have around 10 funds. A multi-asset portfolio could breach that £50k easily. However, there are plenty of multi-asset funds out there. So, you can go with multiple funds.