I have 3 pensions 2 with friends life 1 with aviva

leelums21

I have 3 pensions 2 with friends life 1 with aviva as they are both merging is it worth me merging them into 1 or should I leave
as is as I will probably face charges on 2 when they pay out. help v much appreciated.

dunstonh

leelums21 wrote: »

I have 3 pensions 2 with friends life 1 with aviva as they are both merging is it worth me merging them into 1 or should I leave
as is as I will probably face charges on 2 when they pay out. help v much appreciated.

Is it better to consolidate them or not?

You haven't given as anything to go on. So, we cannot say as we know nothing about them.

Your assumption it costs more to have more pensions is not correct. For example. if you have 1 pension costing 1% or 10 pensions each costing 0.5% then the 10 pensions are cheaper than the one.

Without an analysis of the existing plans vs the alternatives available to you, there is no way anyone on the internet can answer your question.

leelums21

thanks for answering what kind of info do you need the life one is £17000 an the aviva bout £2000
what other info do you need thanks again.

bigadaj

leelums21 wrote: »

thanks for answering what kind of info do you need the life one is £17000 an the aviva bout £2000
what other info do you need thanks again.

Dunstonh is a regulated adviser so has to be careful in his responses, I'm not so have a little more leeway.

My opinion is that you need to contact them and ask them what charges are being incurred, and whether there are any guarantees in existence. Also are these with profits or unit linked, if no guarantees then transferring to a totally new pension may be best, charges have reduced over the years. The other thing is investment choice, which again has improved on newer policies.

Karmacat

I'm sort of in the same boat - one pension with Friends Life, one with Aviva. Put them together, and they tip me over the £30k threshold.

I've been trying to work out, this morning, whether the £30k threshold actually applies to me, and the quotes on the government website that I've found (which I've summarised on my diary on mfw for safekeeping, so to speak).

They have a mini questionnaire about what sort of pension you have, and when I answered, they said "From what you’ve told us you have a defined contribution pension. These are sometimes known as ‘money purchase’ pensions. The amount you get depends on how much was paid in and how well the investments have done. You choose how to take money from your pension pot."

Yep - both the pensions concerned are private, as I've been self employed for 30 years or so.

Another page on the PensionWise website says: "you have to have IFA advice if you have a defined contribution pension worth more than £30k with a guarantee about what you'll be paid when you retire".

That's where it gets interesting, because I *don't* have that guarantee.

So my question is: am I right in my research, that although I have a defined contribution pension, because I don't have a guarantee about what I'll be paid when I retire, I'm not one of those who are forced into consulting an IFA?

Linton

There is no requirement to consult an IFA if you want to transfer a DC pension with no guarantees.

greenglide

You could look up the name of the scheme (or the name of the employer) at the government site https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details .

Failing this ask the ex employer for details of who the scheme is with.

Mnd

We have just received a letter telling us that friends life is being taken over by aviva, so it may become easier to do what you want in the future

dunstonh

Mnd wrote: »

We have just received a letter telling us that friends life is being taken over by aviva, so it may become easier to do what you want in the future

Aviva bought FL a couple of years ago. They have been slowly integrating bits of it and will be rebranding FL to Aviva. However, it won't make much of a difference for a long time as legacy policies will retain their policy conditions. It is just several more legacy systems for Aviva to handle on top of the other legacy systems they have built up over the years.

Karmacat

dunstonh wrote: »

Aviva bought FL a couple of years ago. They have been slowly integrating bits of it and will be rebranding FL to Aviva. However, it won't make much of a difference for a long time as legacy policies will retain their policy conditions. It is just several more legacy systems for Aviva to handle on top of the other legacy systems they have built up over the years.

Thanks dunstonh. The thing is, while I trust both companies in terms of what they do with my money, I don't really trust *any* big company enough to ignore the 6 page letter and two booklets. It's going to make a difference at some stage, and I think I'll get in before the rush to make some changes. Good to know this, though.

Little_Miss_Moneysaver

Hello dunstonh, and all you clever people on this forum :T!

I also have a Friends Life personal pension policy (which was originally AXA, then became Friends Life, and is now bought out by Aviva).

I have only invested in Friends Life "own internal funds" - to keep charges low. There are no other benefits that came with it, when it was set up by an IFA 10 years ago (i.e. no guaranteed annuity rates, no investment in "with-proft funds").

It's not performed overly well over the years, and the online functionality has been awful - compared to my husband's Aviva online pension dashboard, which is very swish to look at.

I have been wondering whether to transfer my Friends Life policy to Aviva.
Am i correct in my thinking to stay put for now, as:
a) When Aviva-Friends Life merger is complete in Oct 2017, Aviva will end up re-naming all my Friends Life funds + altering the fund charges anyway? And if i'm worse off re: charges, make a move at that time?

b) Vanguard is due to launch it's SIPP in late 2018 - so hoping Vanguard's fees will be lower than i'm currently paying... so perhaps stop paying any further into Friends Life, and open a new SIPP with Vanguard when it launches?

c) By the grace of God, Aviva's nice pension dashboard will somehow be translated across to my Friends Life account?
Does anyone know if this is likely to happen, or is it just wishful hoping on my end?

Any feedback would be much appreciated on these questions!


Much to my pleasant surprise, the AMC on my policy, for amounts invested over £100k seems to have dropped from 0.55% (which has been the AMC for the past 10 yrs), to 0.45% very recently.

The Friends Life call-centre said they assume it was due to the Aviva merger, but they had no other explanation for this surprise drop in AMC.
Does anyone know if this is true? I'm hoping it's not just a typo on a letter i had from them :eek:!

The "My plans" section of Friends Life website was closed down a few days ago - so you can no longer login online, to get the latest valuation :mad:.

Friends Life call-centre staff didn't know when Aviva would make that info available on Aviva's own website, nor when Friends Life customers would be able to login on Aviva's own website to see their financial details online.
Does anyone know the answer to this - i feel very uneasy about not being able to view my policy online?

Many thanks in advance for reading my post, and would be very grateful for anyone's insights into my questions.