Royal London pension

jscol

We recently met an IFA as we were keen to start a personal pension for my wife. She's already a member of a DB scheme but we felt it good start an additional scheme for the tax benefits.

Our IFA suggested we invest in Royal London governed portfolio 5. This is a pension we can only invest in via an IFA and to do so would involve paying our IFA an upfront fee (£400)and potentially a fee (0.75%) for the on going management of the pension.

Given my wife works part time and pays into her DB scene there are limits to how much tax we can claim back and obviously this limits how much one can pay into her second pension.

I'm really not sure what to do from here. Would others think we can find a similar pension off the shelf and invest directly in a non Royal London product? Or given we have paid an upfront fee for financial advice would ir seem sensible just to pay that bit more for a product that is recommended for us? I can't help feeling that the 400 is quite a chunk to loose at the start of our investment.

I suppose part of my issue is I thought when one went to see an IFA one paid a one off fee for advice and there were no further charges for investing in products. I maybe didn't realise we would pay a meeting fee and then an arrangement fee and then possibly even an on going management fee.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Money_Help

If your situation is simple and you just want accumulate money into a pension over the next 10+ years then it doesn't sound like you need any further advice from an IFA. There are plenty of personal pensions you can set up from well known companies such as Standard Life, Legal and General, Aviva etc. You should be able to source one using one of the comparison websites. Just make sure your overall costs are low and below 1%. Most of these providers will have an attitude to risk questionnaire so you can determine what risk you are happy to take and then choose a managed fund so the investment management is done for you.

dunstonh

Our IFA suggested we invest in Royal London governed portfolio 5. This is a pension we can only invest in via an IFA and to do so would involve paying our IFA an upfront fee (£400)and potentially a fee (0.75%) for the on going management of the pension.

RL are highly regarded. Their product is well priced (not the cheapest but right at the top end). They are a mutual that shares profits (they distributed 0.18% of fund value as profitshare last year)

You do not need to keep ongoing servicing. Transactional is fine. We have arranged many RL plans on a transactional basis. Ongoing is optional. So, if you dont want it then you dont need to have it.

JoeCrystal

jscol wrote: »

We recently met an IFA as we were keen to start a personal pension for my wife. She's already a member of a DB scheme but we felt it good start an additional scheme for the tax benefits.

Our IFA suggested we invest in Royal London governed portfolio 5. This is a pension we can only invest in via an IFA and to do so would involve paying our IFA an upfront fee (£400)and potentially a fee (0.75%) for the on going management of the pension.

Given my wife works part time and pays into her DB scene there are limits to how much tax we can claim back and obviously this limits how much one can pay into her second pension.

I'm really not sure what to do from here. Would others think we can find a similar pension off the shelf and invest directly in a non Royal London product? Or given we have paid an upfront fee for financial advice would ir seem sensible just to pay that bit more for a product that is recommended for us? I can't help feeling that the 400 is quite a chunk to loose at the start of our investment.

I suppose part of my issue is I thought when one went to see an IFA one paid a one off fee for advice and there were no further charges for investing in products. I maybe didn't realise we would pay a meeting fee and then an arrangement fee and then possibly even an on going management fee.

Thanks for any thoughts.

I had RL set up with an IFA as well and I only pay a fees of few hundred pounds. Even better, since it was a transfer from old much more expensive pension scheme, the fees were paid from within the pension itself. There was no ongoing servicing either.

jscol

Thanks everyone.

If we do go for the RL pension we've decided it's going to be without going management.

Dunstonh - I'm guessing from what you're saying it might be reasonable to go for RL pension as it's a well regarded scheme and will give us an element of profit sharing? Do they add the profit share to your fund or does it come as cash?

Can anyone think of a good reason to do one or other option?

Hal17

Royal London add it your your Pension fund.