Royal London Pension Funds

Cottage_Economy

I have a Royal London pension with my employer and am looking through their list of available funds for something that is multi-asset (other than the multi-asset credit fund).

I'm having a devil of a time sifting through what is there to find one. Am I missing them or are there just none there?

Alternatively, Royal London offers the Governed Portfolios, which appear to be multi-asset - does anyone have any opinion of those?

If there isn't anything suitable I'll put together something from the available funds that would function as a multi-asset portfolio. I have at least 15 years for the pension to grow

msallen

I also have a fairly new pension with them through my current employer (started at the beginning of the year).

I'm in their "Adventurous Lifestyle Strategy (Drawdown)" which at 15 years to target retirement has the following split:
RLP Global Managed - 81.6%
RLP Property - 13.4%
RLP Commodity - 5%

There are different Lifestyling options with a lower ratio of equities if thats what you want.

Cottage_Economy

I'm giving this a little bump to see if there are more opinions on this?

msallen - all of the funds in the Governed Portfolios are RL funds. I'd like to consider others from different providers as well, if there are some available.

Alexland

Does the scheme allow for a partial transfer out into a SIPP? I wasn't entirely happy with the option in my workplace pension (although the fees were low) so transferred a lump sum out into a SIPP. I left some in there so it would still be open for new employer and employee contributions. Check you wouldn't be giving up any valuable benefits.

Alex

Cottage_Economy

Alexland wrote: »

Does the scheme allow for a partial transfer out into a SIPP? I wasn't entirely happy with the option in my workplace pension (although the fees were low) so transferred a lump sum out into a SIPP. I left some in there so it would still be open for new employer and employee contributions. Check you wouldn't be giving up any valuable benefits.

Alex

That's an interesting idea. I don't know - it's a bog standard personal pension so probably does. Worth checking though. I guess it would depend on the cost of the transfer.

The RL fund fees are quite high at a minimum 1%, even passive index funds. Saying that RL has to pay its bill and make a profit.

ukdw

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

That's an interesting idea. I don't know - it's a bog standard personal pension so probably does. Worth checking though. I guess it would depend on the cost of the transfer.

The RL fund fees are quite high at a minimum 1%, even passive index funds. Saying that RL has to pay its bill and make a profit.

Royal London can apply discounts to the 1% standard fee depending on the amount invested - from 0.1% up to 0.65%.
Many RL members are also eligible for a non guaranteed ‘profit sharing’ which could bring a further 0.15% to 0.25% discount.

mc4924

The RL fund fees are quite high at a minimum 1%, even passive index funds. Saying that RL has to pay its bill and make a profit.

I have a Royal London pension with my employer (small company so I guess it would not be able to negotiate a huge discount on the fees) and we pay total fees of 0.53% on all the governed portfolio (and also other in-house found I believe, I would need to check).
If doing a transfer from another pension the fees reduce to 0.50%

Also, the 'profit sharing' this year was 0.18%

So it doesn't look too bad, I'd say, on the cost front.

dunstonh

The RL fund fees are quite high at a minimum 1%, even passive index funds. Saying that RL has to pay its bill and make a profit.

Remember that 1% price is if you buy direct. Via an IFA, the RL pricing is more like 0.45% for the same funds.

Cottage_Economy

Dunstonh - I'm not sure I do get a discounted rate. I've had the yearly update and it clearly shows I'm paying the full fees for the funds I have.

The company has its own RL advisor (personal friend of the CEO as well) who sorts the pensions out for each staff member when they pass their probabtion. He also does mortgage broking and life assurance. Almost all 60 people in the firm use him for those services when they need them. He was fabulous dealing with my mortgage provider.

mc4924 & ukdw- I did have a profit share this year, which I think amounted to £13! I only started the pension about three years ago (just shy of £11k in there) so the profit share won't be large.

I would just prefer to have a choice of multi-asset funds through RL and apart from their own products, don't seem to be able to find one.

dunstonh

Dunstonh - I'm not sure I do get a discounted rate. I've had the yearly update and it clearly shows I'm paying the full fees for the funds I have.

The company has its own RL advisor (personal friend of the CEO as well) who sorts the pensions out for each staff member when they pass their probabtion. He also does mortgage broking and life assurance. Almost all 60 people in the firm use him for those services when they need them. He was fabulous dealing with my mortgage provider.

If you have the auto-enrolment version of the product, then the internal funds should be capped to 0.75%. Not 1%. The fund factsheet may say 1% but that is the base charge prior to discount. AE schemes have a charges cap now (except on external funds/non-default funds). So, worst case scenario should be 0.75%. Not as good as the individual plan version but better than than the 1%.

Cottage_Economy

dunstonh wrote: »

If you have the auto-enrolment version of the product, then the internal funds should be capped to 0.75%. Not 1%. The fund factsheet may say 1% but that is the base charge prior to discount. AE schemes have a charges cap now (except on external funds/non-default funds). So, worst case scenario should be 0.75%. Not as good as the individual plan version but better than than the 1%.

It wasn't auto-enrollment three years ago - I was asked if I wanted the pension or not, i opted to have it. Free money and all that.

The pension statement and illustration I get every year does say 1%. If there is a charges cap it isn't documented on any paperwork I see or on my online account.