Ifa

PensionSort

Hi- about 10 years from retirement (hopefully).

We pay into a group plan set up via employer with Standard life.

The pot is currently @£200k and mthly contributions will be @£2k for the foreseeable future.

The next step is to check the current fund the money is invested in to see if it is performing ok and if not sort this out.

knowing nothing about investments thought it might be sensible to get an IFA to help with this.

A few questions:

-What sort of ball park costs are we talking to get an IFA to perform this type of service.
-What qualifications are specific to this service that the IFA should have
-What questions in this area should we ask the IFA to help decide whether to go with him/her or not.
Thanks

coyrls

I think you might struggle to find an IFA to advise solely on which fund(s) to invest your occupational pension in.

Albermarle

I have a very similar Group Personal pension with SL. I suggest you first register for on line access and have a look yourself, the website is user friendly.
Almost certainly you will be invested in a default SL fund ( which most members of these schemes are as they have not actively chosen anything else) This will be a medium risk level investment with a correspondingly medium level of returns.

I do not have a financial advisor so I will not comment directly except to say that when dealing with any professional , the more you know yourself, the better .

Duffaboy

hi, my old IFA was most helpful with advising me on my company pension and where to invest it

PensionSort

I would be happy to discuss other related services with the IFA but the service above would be important to me.

Albermarle

Hopefully you can find an IFA to do this, but I think normally they are looking for a 'bigger job' where they set up a new pension for you , with more options , lower charges etc.
If you have an employer pension like this the employer has probably been able to negotiate low charges anyway , so you are probably in a reasonable position anyway .

PensionSort

Yes the money is sitting in a default fund and could be moved to other options in the scheme or else where - but before we would do anything we like proper financial advice.

I had thought that lots of people would be in this situation and that this would be a standard service.

Thanks

MightyMythop

Have a look on vouchedfor and ask the question directly on your enquiry....there will no doubt be a fee involved but the advice of an IFA could prove invaluable instead of being lumped into a default fund especially as when you're approaching retirement it will automatically move more of your fund put into cash/gilts etc which may or may not be what you need depending on your personal circumstances.

TcpnT

It is possible to find IFA who is willing to cover one off jobs on a fixed/agreed fee basis. I have used one and paid on an hourly basis for similar work.

Alibert

it's very easy to find out for yourself what your investment options are, within your scheme , and once you have found out I think you'll be able to pick one without advice