Workplace pension with Scottish Widows - options?

Prism

dunstonh wrote: »

Lloyds have starved SW of funding and they have really poor products with generally poor internal funds.

It is unlikely you are using a platform with an AE scheme.

Ah that makes sense. Mine is an old upgraded Norwich Union personal pension. Aviva seem to have done a pretty good job of adapting to compete with Sipps and I'm happy with both the fees and fund choices. Scottish Widows seems poor by comparision. The platform fee is high at 1% (built into the fund costs) and the default fund is poor and the portal terrible. I can almost guarantee that at my wifes work most people have left their fund as the default which seems a shame really.

crv1963

I'm a lot older than OP and can't offer an opinion on the funds discussed as I too am trying to sort our pensions out and don't know enough to say which fund to go for.


What I can contribute about a discussion I had with my 20 year old son- he following advice from this site is going to contribute a total of 11% (His and Employers contributions) to his pension savings he has chosen 100% equities and intends to keep this up until his early 40s when he will review his plans to make sure he is on track to retire at around 10 years before SPA.


He suspects his (and probably OP) SP won't kick in until 75! So will be looking to retire 65. His rationale is ride out any drops, keep investing and if/ when he reviews he'll have time to let the invested funds rise again before transferring funds to less risky ones as he draws near his retirement date. He's reckoning on some market crashes and some "dips" along the way but says he'll hold his nerve and although he intends to watch his "pot" he will not overthink the fund.


I'd suggest OP sets a target however loosely about his target retirement age, accepting it may need at 26 to be a moveable feast and work with his wife to jointly save so they maximise the tax allowances when they eventually get their pensions- my wife and I are having to pour monies into her pension and ISAs to reduce our tax bill when we retire in a few years.


Well done OP for looking at it all now- we left it late in the day and are playing catch up!

michaels

I would be interested in what people with SW pensions decide to do.

Mine is under 2 schemes, series 1 and series 2, the cheapest SW branded funds seem to be 1% pa which seems to be paying at least 0.5% more than typical market rates which must add up over a number of years so it seems to make sense to transfer elsewhere.
The series 1 is now locked for new contributions so it would seem to make sense to move that out immediately.

The series 2 is still being contributed to so I am not sure of the best way to reduce charges on this. I have heard mention on these boards of 'rebated fees' deals - not sure what this means.

I have a suspicion that there may also be a payment to another company on the way in as my company does not deal direct with SW but through another firm who no doubt take a cut as well.

MallyGirl

My DH has a SW pot with £230k in it - it is a former employer's GPPP.
He stopped paying in 2014 but a financial review in 2016 recommended he recommence payments in as this would see his fees rebated (it being an active pension rather than a dormant one). He now puts in £20 pcm to satisfy their min investment criteria.

dunstonh

I would be interested in what people with SW pensions decid eto do.

I transferred most of them out. Only those who were on decent discounts or active current members have been left in place.

Prism

michaels wrote: »

I would be interested in what people with SW pensions decid eto do.

I am thinking of advising my wife to do a partial move - maybe 80%. We need to keep it running as it is an active account and there is one fund in there at least which I like which has got a somewhat acceptable charge/performance. The rest I will move into a SIPP. I guess I will need to repeat this in a few years after more contributions.

ex-pat_scot

michaels wrote: »

I would be interested in what people with SW pensions decid eto do. Mine is under 2 schemes, series 1 and series 2, the cheapest SW branded funds seem to be 1% pa which seems to be paying at least 0.5% more than typical market rates which must add up over a number of years so it seems to make sense to transfer elsewhere. The series 1 is now locked for new contributions so it would seem to make sense to move that out immediately. The series 2 is still being contributed to so I am not sure of the best way to reduce charges on this. I have heard mention on these boards of 'rebated fees' deals - not sure what this means. I have a suspicion that there may also be a payment to another company on the way in as my company does not deal direct with SW but through another firm who no doubt take a cut as well.

I have a current GPPP with SW (series 2).
The portal is dire, albeit there is a new shiny one in parallel run.


I get a fair bit of the AMC rebated: you can see what you get back via the "unit history" which shows your monthly contribution being invested, then 5 days later there is an additional "AMC adjustment that shows purchase of a small amount of additional units. This appears to be on a FUM rather than contribution basis, as the monthly adjustment value is steadily increasing in line with the steadily increasing pot value.


I have not investigated partial withdrawal of the pot out into my SIPP: were I to leave current employer then I suspect the SIPP would be a much better cheaper more flexible vehicle for my funds and would therefore transfer across.

michaels

Thanks all

michaels

ex-pat_scot wrote: »

I have a current GPPP with SW (series 2).
The portal is dire, albeit there is a new shiny one in parallel run.


I get a fair bit of the AMC rebated: you can see what you get back via the "unit history" which shows your monthly contribution being invested, then 5 days later there is an additional "AMC adjustment that shows purchase of a small amount of additional units. This appears to be on a FUM rather than contribution basis, as the monthly adjustment value is steadily increasing in line with the steadily increasing pot value.


I have not investigated partial withdrawal of the pot out into my SIPP: were I to leave current employer then I suspect the SIPP would be a much better cheaper more flexible vehicle for my funds and would therefore transfer across.

On my series 2 which is in a 1% charges fund I get an annual, credited monthly AMC adjustment worth about 0.3% of fund value so does that mean I am paying 0.7% for the portfolio 2 fund?

I can't see the series 1 via the portal so no idea if I get any discount on the charges for this one.

Pepod

Just to give an update to this thread, I decided for now to switch the funds from Consensus to "SW SSgA International Equity Index Pension Series 2". I was unable to do this online because the menu did not appear correctly for me on any web browser, but when doing this by phone they confirmed to me that the fee would be the same as it was for the Consensus fund at 0.55% which to me (who knows nothing about normal fees) seems not too bad for an externally managed fund which shows an AMC of 1% on FE.

I have chosen to do this because it seems to be performing better than the Consensus fund (which just seems pretty terrible to me) and it is a global ex-uk equity tracker which is the area I was recomended to look into on this thread. It is also more simple to understand for me (being a tracker) and low cost (at least no more than I have been paying) and should allow me time to research things and try to learn more. I can then come back in the future to see if I want to cover something else (such as the UK).

As another question for those familiar with the platform. I can see that I obviously have a discounted fee compared to what SW advertise. If my AMC fee is showing as 0.55%, and I am also seeing an AMC adj. payment on the 5th of each month, what exactly is this for?