Choosing an IFA and fees

dunstonh

capital/accumulation units 3.5% pa (OK straightforward, i get that)

Also, very old fashioned. Not something you would see in most contracts arranged in the last 20 years.

Bid to offer spread 5% of all payments (how do i work this out ie how many bids/offers pa?)

Also old fashioned. Even many of the legacy plans that did have spreads like that countered them with higher allocation rates.

Do they see inline with industry norms for a big pension co?

Yes if you were in the 1980s to say around mid 90s. Woefully obsolete by modern standards. However, the caveat to that is that many insurers may have had those on inception but around 2001, they put in place counters to make them a non-issue. Increased allocations and AMC caps being common. Hard coded software meant they couldnt easily change them so they had to use the existing software for adjustments.

Think pensions of that era being like a black & white TV today. You cant make it a colour ultra HD widescreen no matter how much you try. Whereas a modern TV gets software patches and can be coded to get updates and changes (to a point). Sooner or later you have to change the TV if you want something better. Pensions were much the same. They were products. Nowadays they are administration platforms run by software.

All that said, there are some old gems around. Some insurers had little or no AMC when made paid up. They put all their charges into the contribution. So, stopping the contribution made them dirt cheap. Some had valuable guarantees. So, you cannot just look at one area but instead consider all areas and changes that may have occurred since inception.