Royal London GAR

wjr4

You’re not giving the IFA much time to review this. I’ve recently advised on five of these cases and each took more than two weeks. FYI there is also a basis for the annuity which increases by 3% per annum and offers 50% spouse pension. Also, there is a minimum that Royal London will increase by and that’ll be around 38% for you (based on the two male clients that I dealt with). You need to take all of this into account.

Robert_McGeddon

Thank you wjr4.

I've crunched the annuity numbers myself and am pretty sure the uplift option is preferable for me. This is primarily because there is residual value on my death, whether retained in the pension pot and/or transferred into an ISA. Also, annuity rates quoted online for the uplifted amount are very similar to Royal London's annuity under the GAR. So I can still decide about taking an annuity in a year or two's time.

Robert_McGeddon

A brief update on the Royal London GAR removal scheme - from their website.

15% of planholders opted out (or were opted out) of the scheme, thereby retaining their GARs. Of the remainder, 98.9% by value opted to adopt the scheme. Now awaiting High Court approval to proceed.

anselld

Robert_McGeddon wrote: »

A brief update on the Royal London GAR removal scheme - from their website.

15% of planholders opted out (or were opted out) of the scheme, thereby retaining their GARs. Of the remainder, 98.9% by value opted to adopt the scheme. Now awaiting High Court approval to proceed.

Interesting what the 1.1% who voted not to adopt the scheme were thinking! Did they not realise that by voting at all they must now proceed with the inevitable majority?

The only way to retain GAR was to opt out and not vote. A very peculiar voting system but hopefully everyone got what they wanted individually.

kidmugsy

An argument against keeping money in the pension as long as poss would be fear of an increase in the rates of income tax.

Tassie_Devil

What was the outcome of the sanction hearing on 12 Nov?

Robert_McGeddon

Tassie_Devil wrote: »

What was the outcome of the sanction hearing on 12 Nov?

Royal London have updated their website as follows:

An update on the guaranteed annuity rate (GAR) Scheme

The planholder meeting took place on 23 October 2018 and the voting deadline has now passed.

The majority of our planholders who voted, voted for the Scheme.

We asked the court to approve the Scheme at a sanction hearing on 12 November 2018. The court approved the Scheme and we'll increase the savings of eligible planholders (who did not opt out or were not opted out) in return for removal of the GAR , on 7 December 2018.

We'll write to all eligible planholders to confirm the outcome of the meeting and sanction hearing and what that means for their plan(s) in January 2019.

Yippee!