Escaping a Standard Life Wrap

TychoTMA

Some time ago, I was persuaded by an advisor to put some funds (currently worth about £100k) in to a Standard Life Wrap. Subsequently, I parted company with that advisor. Looking at the fine print recently, I see now that I can only operate those investments via a financial advisor who is "enabled" to use the SL wrap.

My guess is therefore, is that any advisor I find who is enabled for the SL wrap is probably going to want me to stay with that wrap. That seems to suggest that I am trapped in there. Has anyone else faced this problem and figured out a good way forward?

T

Aegis

You aren't trapped there. If you don't want to stay and don't want to keep any adviser, you can transfer your holdings from Standard Life to another wrap or brokerage (there will be some brokerages that don't offer a pension, so if you have pension assets you need to make sure your platform of choice has one). if you transfer in specie, you won't even trigger any taxes. There may be exit charges - I'm not sure.


Alternatively if you want an adviser, they can either keep you on Standard Life or move you to another investment platform. Standard Life always struck me as expensive, so a move might well be favourable, but it will depend how much the move costs you.

AnotherJoe

Is this a pension ? Or an ISA? Or just a fund and share account ?

dunstonh

I see now that I can only operate those investments via a financial advisor who is "enabled" to use the SL wrap.

SL Wrap is a platform aimed at advisers who restrict to only using SL Wrap or agree to place a certain amount of assets as a minimum on their platform.

My guess is therefore, is that any advisor I find who is enabled for the SL wrap is probably going to want me to stay with that wrap.

Not at all. SL run a second platform for IFAs. Moving between the two is easy (or to any other platform for that matter). Indeed, I have moved a couple of million away from SL Wrap in the last few months and the transfer was painless and quick.

That seems to suggest that I am trapped in there.

You are not.

TychoTMA

Many thanks for those replies, which are very re-assuring. Almost all the funds are ISA's.

TychoTMA

Since my last post I've had two long phone conversations with Standard Life. I have to say, the people there seem both incredibly helpful and well-trained compared with many other organisations in the financial sector. But the bottom line is that without using a Financial Advisor, the funds are not manageable, but as they're not doing badly, maybe I can procrastinate.... a while longer :eek:.

hornmeister

First thing to do is write to Standard Life and inform them that you wish to sever tires with your financial adviser and cease all ongoing fee payments. If you're using the services of a new IFA then this should have already been done by them. You will have had to sign a form or instruction letter.



Until you do this your old IFA will still be able to access your account and may be receiving ongoing fees.


Standard Life may wish to transfer you to another product (becasue of this products T&Cs) if you don't have an IFA. They should explain this and send you details of what needs to be done to transfer to a non IFA product. It's possible that a non IFA advised product may be more expensive in their running costs as they have to do more work communicating with you than they do an IFA, so look at the details of their offering carefully.



It may well be quicker for you to open a personal ISA with another provider with a request to transfer out from Standard Life. Someone like Youinvest from AJ Bell will fund certain charges levied by the exiting scheme.


£100K is no small amount however and If you're not confident about taking control of it then another IFA would normally handle this sort of stuff for you but should be clear on their charges to do so in advance.

susieb

I have a pension SL wrap. It seems to have done quite well since i opened it and is managed by an IFA. Theres a similar amount of money in it to the OP. I have transferred a small local government pension into it as I wanted the facility to drawdown on it when im 55.
Ive been very happy with how the fund has performed, but reading this post has made me wonder if I should be concerned, Ive just gone along with whatever the advisor has recommended, is s SL wrap a bad choice for pension funds

dunstonh

I have a pension SL wrap. It seems to have done quite well since i opened it and is managed by an IFA.

SL Wrap is a whole of market platform. It has the same investment options as all the other whole of market platforms. It also has higher charges than the Standard Life Elevate platform (which is aimed at IFAs rather than those who want to restrict their platform offering - although the tiering can make wrap cheaper with some amounts but not by much).

So, the investment returns would be identical whether you had SL wrap, SL Elevate platform, Aegon, HL, or any of the other dozen or so platforms.

Or putting it another way, its like buying a tin of Heinz beans from Waitrose, Tesco, Morrisons, Asda etc. They are all the same bar price and experience.

is s SL wrap a bad choice for pension funds

SL do not offer any pension funds. No whole of market platform does. Pension funds are only offered via personal pensions and stakeholder pensions (although a couple of insurance company SIPPs offer internal insured funds).

So, you wont have pension funds. You will have funds within a pension though. Probably unit trust or OEIC funds.

There is nothing wrong with SL Wrap. Its cheaper than HL. its more expensive than others. Its just another supermarket.

kidmugsy

TychoTMA wrote: »

Since my last post I've had two long phone conversations with Standard Life. I have to say, the people there seem both incredibly helpful and well-trained compared with many other organisations in the financial sector.

In that case I'd be tempted to enquire whether SL offer ISAs that you can manage yourself. Maybe a switch would be easy.