Projected plan value

dunstonh

This is a major shock to the system and I'm very upset I thought my best interest were in hand but obviously not, I've seriously fallen into the trap and not impressed with the adviser!

It was not your adviser though. it was the employers. Your employer uses the adviser to put the pension in place at the required levels. So, unless you employ them to give you personalised advice, they are not really acting as advisers for you but more as an administrator.

If you want an adviser, then you should use an independent one. Not one that represents your employer or union or employed by an affiliation group linked to your employment. Their interests and requirements may not be aligned with yours and even if its says they are an adviser on their business card, they may only be acting as an administrator when dealing with you.

sonny_c

ohh well it has been a school day for me, cheeky how the adviser charges are taken from my plan if they don't have my best interest, hence me thinking they were working for me.
*would this be the same for my OH on the 2015 NHS Pension CARE Scheme?

Plan of action in the time being is below and I'll look into seeking a independent adviser, would that mean I'll be paying out twice? employers and independent

AnotherJoe wrote: »

So, first step is, save more. Second step spend less which helps with first step. Third step earn more. Every one of those will help and the earlier you start the better.

Many thanks for the sound advice

dunstonh

cheeky how the adviser charges are taken from my plan if they don't have my best interest

That should not be happening if it is an auto-enrolment plan. That is a recent change. Older plans from before auto-enrolment used to do that as the employer was effectively passing the charge to the employees. Are you sure that it was a financial adviser you saw and not pension administrator? A firm can be a financial adviser but this does not mean they are being employed to give advice. A lot of employer schemes are run by administrators who have an advice arm or started out as advisers but now focus on pension administration.

Is your scheme a group stakeholder, group personal pension, money purchase occupational pension or an auto-enrolment scheme? What are the charges you are paying?

*would this be the same for my OH on the 2015 NHS Pension CARE Scheme?

No. That pension is not set up by a financial adviser.

sandsy

sonny_c wrote: »

cheeky how the adviser charges are taken from my plan if they don't have my best interest, hence me thinking they were working for me.

They can't do that without your explicit permission.

sonny_c

Definitely not a auto-enrolment plan I've been a member approx. 10 years and I can confirm business cards state Financial Adviser. Plan type: Retirement Solutions Group Personal Pension Plan.

sandsy wrote: »

They can't do that without your explicit permission.

Permission was granted as we all moved from Aviva to RL

greenglide

would that mean I'll be paying out twice? employers and independent

Are you actually paying money directly to the scheme advisor or are you simply assuming that it is deducted from the pension contributions?

Are they actually providing clarification maybe but stopping short of full scale regulated advice?

AnotherJoe

sonny_c wrote: »

Plan of action in the time being is below and I'll look into seeking a independent adviser, would that mean I'll be paying out twice? employers and independent

I think you've got the main advice you need which is that you werent putting enough into the pension.

After that, an advisor would only be useful to tell you what sort of investments you might hold in the pension, but since you dont have a lot at the moment I'd say thats premature.