Royal London Retirement Account

JSL_2

I have a pension with RL which is due to mature at the end of this year when I reach 60 . The funds are now Fixed Interest and Deposit. Not really been doing much this last few months. I have spoke to an IFA who wanted to take on all my investments for a fee of 2500 then ongoing management fee of .75% . I only want to have my RL converted at this point and leave my other investments where they are. Thinking of doing it my self and going for the RL retirement account. Any Advice / Opinions out there ?

AnotherJoe

Impossible to say without knowing your overall financial position. The fact it's all gone into cash is very old fashioned and implies you intended buy an annuity, it's hardly surprising it's "not done much recently" if that's what's happened, thatsbthe whole point !

. The fact you wont be buying an annuity but have done nothing about preventing it going into cash, implies you will need hand holding since that was probably not the wisest move if you were not going to be getting an annuity.

Whether £2,500 is a reasonable fee is unknowable without knowing the size of your pension funds. 0.75% ongoing seems high according to what I read here.

Why did you decide to stay with RL? How do they compare to the others you looked at ?

JSL_2

Hi AJ and thanks for the reply. Fund size with RL is 150k and the total of funds which IFA were going to set up in a platform were 240k . The other 90k is a couple of smaller pensions and investment isa!!!8217;s . There was also going to be a loss of approx 1500 in transfer fees. I am a bit green with whether funds are old fashioned or not and prob when they were set up , annuities were the way. Since pension reforms I have been wanting drawdown . Reason for staying with RL was I seen they had a retirement account which had a cautious mix of funds and also would be less hassle to go into perhaps without the use of an IFA.

AnotherJoe

Just answering one specific point you made, you do not need an IFA to transfer a "standard" DC pension into another pension provider. You just fill a form in.

Of course you'll have to do research to work out who to transfer to. Or you may decide that is too much work / out if your comfort zone and pay for advice though if iy was me as I was taking advice I still wouldnt pay for the transfer, I'd rather pay a fixed fee for a few hours consultation on what funds what companies to look at and then transfer it myself and save the £2,500.

I presume the investment ISAs are not being transferred into a pension, with a few provisos that's not possible. Probably they were suggesting you had all your funds, pension and ISA under one platform provider ?

JSL_2

Yes the 2.5k was to put all on to the same platform, nucleus . 3 Pensions and 2 Isa’s.
Then on going .75% to IFA. Total charges were going to be around 1.9%

JSL_2

Yes the 2.5k was to put all on to the same platform, nucleus . 3 Pensions and 2 Isa’s.
Then on going .75% to IFA. Total charges were going to be around 1.9%
So basically I have almost 250k spread over these pensions and SS ISA’s . Cost to put everything on platform is £2500 then ongoing management fee to IFA of .75% , other charges takes it up to 1.9%.
If I go ahead with this I lose around £1500 , Are these charges Normal/ Fair ?

AnotherJoe

Whether they are normal or fair I don't know, but I'd say they are too much, but then I'm a DIY person. Spend a few months reading up, perhaps try the monevator website, then decide whether to DIY or pay for some one off advice or go full blown managed. Even if you end up doing the latter at least its from a position of knowledge.

dunstonh

So basically I have almost 250k spread over these pensions and SS ISA!!!8217;s . Cost to put everything on platform is £2500 then ongoing management fee to IFA of .75% , other charges takes it up to 1.9%.
If I go ahead with this I lose around £1500 , Are these charges Normal/ Fair ?

The initial you were charged would match my initial. So, I am going to say its fair! Ongoing is about above ours but lower than many. So, its ballpark.

kidmugsy

JSL wrote: »

Yes the 2.5k was to put all on to the same platform, nucleus . 3 Pensions and 2 ISAs.

I wouldn't do that. I'd want my wealth diversified across several platforms, although maybe just two would do. Otherwise what happens if one company fails? Or has a TSB-style software disaster? See the recent discussion here:
http://monevator.com/even-brokers-can-fail-you/


If you want to choose your own platforms that same website has useful tables of charges.
http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/