Pension/investment advice

DairyQueen

Trinity_Phil wrote: »

Having looked through all of the reams of documentation that we have now amassed, I believe it is a DC pension - it is called the Royal London Personal Pension With Profits Fund, but since 2013 they haven't paid any bonuses whatsoever and it appears to have remained static at £21,900, if that helps ??

But there could be a final bonus applied at retirement age. You could call and ask them whether the fund pays such bonuses and, if so, what %age has been paid in the last few years. I am no expert on with profits funds but it's possible that if your wife transfers she may lose-out.

A quick online search and I found the link below. The factsheet suggests that annual bonuses are being paid and that for 2017 the bonus was 2.18%.
https://www.royallondon.com/pensions/investment-options/fund-range/with-profits/

Aiki

I have just joined this forum and this has been a wonderful thread to follow, so thanks to the OP for his great questions over the months and the super informative and thought provoking replies.

This has been very useful to me as I start my detailed financial planning with respect to how/whether to take my pension.

One gem that I had forgotten about in all the discussions of cash v bonds v equities was the reminder that the FTSE100 is today only at the same level that it was 20 years ago so a pure tracker fund would have the same value now as then. All the benefits of being in equities over these 20 years would depend only on how the fund/tracker/individual shares used the dividend income. Much to think about.

Looking forward to spending more time on this site, regards

Trinity_Phil

DairyQueen wrote: »

But there could be a final bonus applied at retirement age. You could call and ask them whether the fund pays such bonuses and, if so, what %age has been paid in the last few years. I am no expert on with profits funds but it's possible that if your wife transfers she may lose-out.

A quick online search and I found the link below. The factsheet suggests that annual bonuses are being paid and that for 2017 the bonus was 2.18%.
https://www.royallondon.com/pensions/investment-options/fund-range/with-profits/

Thanks again DQ..I have just emailed them and will see what they come back with. :T

Thrugelmir

Aiki wrote: »

One gem that I had forgotten about in all the discussions of cash v bonds v equities was the reminder that the FTSE100 is today only at the same level that it was 20 years ago so a pure tracker fund would have the same value now as then. All the benefits of being in equities over these 20 years would depend only on how the fund/tracker/individual shares used the dividend income. Much to think about.

Remember that the constituents of the market indexes are not static. An index such as the FTSE100 may change due to companies delisting for a variety of reasons (such as going bust or being taken over). This will result in another stock being promoted to the index. In addition every quarter the bottom 4 stocks by market capitalisation are relegated and the four beneath elevated up into the index.

Going back to when the index was formed. Only 28 of the listed companies exist today.

Little point in getting hung up on what is in effect a mathematical exercise. Companies by their very nature rise and fall.

atush

Aiki wrote: »

I have just joined this forum and this has been a wonderful thread to follow, so thanks to the OP for his great questions over the months and the super informative and thought provoking replies.

This has been very useful to me as I start my detailed financial planning with respect to how/whether to take my pension.

One gem that I had forgotten about in all the discussions of cash v bonds v equities was the reminder that the FTSE100 is today only at the same level that it was 20 years ago so a pure tracker fund would have the same value now as then. All the benefits of being in equities over these 20 years would depend only on how the fund/tracker/individual shares used the dividend income. Much to think about.

Looking forward to spending more time on this site, regards

Dividends tend to be reinvested, and the FTSE100 with dividends reinvested is above where it was 20 years ago.

Trinity_Phil

I have just spoken with the wife's LGPS Pension Fund and they have asked us to email them the details of the wife's Royal London pension and they will have a look and see if it is feasible to transfer it over.

JoeCrystal

Trinity_Phil wrote: »

I have just spoken with the wife's LGPS Pension Fund and they have asked us to email them the details of the wife's Royal London pension and they will have a look and see if it is feasible to transfer it over.

Progress at least! Let us know what your wife can get from LGPS with £21,600 transfer. I am always interested to hear what it can buy from LGPS.

Trinity_Phil

Watch this space..:)

Trinity_Phil

Okay, so there have been a couple of developments over the past week....
Our IFA came to see us as expected on Thursday and we discussed the fees involved in the Pru investments that he was suggesting we sign up for. I basically told him that we thought they were very expensive and that we were concerned that in the current economic climate, that we believed that our investments would drop initially before we would see any return on them, so we didn't feel comfortable investing in them. He stated that although he couldn't give any guarantees on performance (who can ?), that for 77% of the time investments go up rather than down and that there are fees of usually around 2% involved in all managed investments.
He was clearly disappointed, as he then realised that we wouldn't be going ahead with him, but to be fair he was more disappointed with himself for not going through the fees with us beforehand and that if he had done, then he would have known that we wouldn't have been suitable for his recommendations, so we are no longer going to use him.
There was an unexpected bonus though, when he refused to take any fees from us for the enquiries he has undertaken on our behalf and the comprehensive report he subsequently compiled.
I believe their standard fee is usually around £750 for this report.

The second development has been in relation to the wife's pension....Royal London have got back to us and it would appear that she had 4 small pension pots running since the 1980's with United Friendly and they were "With Profits" funds. They subsequently got taken over by Royal London but since 2011 the "reversionary bonus rates" have been 0% (?) and they will only tell us what the current transfer value is, rather than the actual total value of the investments, which our IFA said they are not obliged to disclose until the wife decides to withdraw it ??
However, since our initial enquiry in October when they said it was valued at £21,900, they are now saying it is worth £22,600 ??
They state that there is no charge to transfer the policies elsewhere.
Her LGPS have also been back to us and are requesting a transfer value for the Royal London funds, so it looks as though we may be able to transfer this over, if this would be more beneficial to us ??

I have also joined NARPO (the National Association of Retired Police Officers) as tomorrow is retirement day and have just received their current newsletter which has an advertisement for a "metfriendly" Lump Sum stocks and shares ISA which has allegedly averaged 5.1% growth over the past 10 years. Is this good or are there better options...ie the Vanguard LS40 mentioned above ??
I am not sure if they are part of the Pru as well though because the small print at the bottom states that they are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority ??
They are also offering a £100 John Lewis gift card, for ISA's taken out before 31st March (a bit of a gimmick, I know), but is this ISA worth considering ??

I also bit the bullet on the Police Federation life insurance policy and have renewed my membership of that

And finally, in relation to potentially taking out a SIPP, our IFA suggested that this wasn't a good idea (I can't remember why), but there are also adverts on our local radio station stating that people can claim compensation if they were mis-sold a SIPP ??

Aiki

Happy Retirement Day. Have a great day and superb retirement. Good luck and thanks for the thread.