Legal and General Worksave Buyout Plan

TheShape

I've posted previously about having three small pensions that I might like to transfer into one new pension plan. I thought that before I do that I'd look at the pensions first to see whether there was merit to leaving them where they are, perhaps changing the investments and restarting contributions.

The first I've looked into is the Legal and General (TN) Worksave Buyout Plan.

It is 'invested' in L&G Cash 3 fund which appears to be a cash fund designed to track interest rates, therefore performing very poorly. Its current value is only £1600 approx.

There is a list of funds available to re-invest in but short of clicking on each one and reading the fund prospectus I'm not able to easily pick a fund to transfer to. I'd ideally like a low-cost tracker fund, something like the Vanguard Lifestrategy funds (which i've seen discussed on this forum) with high levels of equities. L&G "multi-index" was mentioned as a fund that I might have interest in for my S&S ISA but i can't ready identify that fund or an equivalent. Also, all the funds appear to have a number 3 as a suffix to the fund name, does this denote anything?

There also doesn't seem to be an easy way to make payments, either as lump sums or regular contributions other than making contact by phone.

Does anyone know if there's any value in leaving it with L&G rather than just transferring it into a SIPP or personal pension?

ScottyLP

From experience, the "3" at the end of the funds represent the generation of fund available on the product.

You may want to check the charges on the plan - with the buy out plans they often have very competitive charges (I've seen them at 0%)

Even though it's a section 32a buy out plan, there'll be no gmp/gars applicable - but you may be entitled to more than 25% of the pot tax free.

TheShape

There appears to be an Annual Management Charge of 0.9% (although there appears to be no mention of this in any statement for the past 4 years) and an Annual Fund Charge of 0.1%. Last year's charge was £14.34 so seams consistent with approx 1% overall.

The statements make mention of Protected Rights which make up a proportion of the fund, what are these?

I imagine I should look at the charges on my other (also very small) pensions before moving anything.