Numerous pension pots?

newforestmum_2

My husband has several employed and self employed pensions? I have just seen an advert from a company talking about lost pensions and about letting them start you a new pension and add all of your old pensions to it??


So my question is what do I do with hubby's pension pots? Leave them be or try and join them all together? However some are self employed and some are employed company pensions??

xylophone

It would not seem that your husband's pensions are lost?

Or are they?

He can check here for himself. https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

With regard to the company pensions, what type pf pensions are these?

They could be deferred Defined Benefit - they could be Defined Contribution/Money Purchase.

They could be DC with DB underpin or vice versa.

The policies he has taken out as a self employed person will be DC.

The DC pensions could have Guaranteed Annuity Rates.

If you husband thinks that he needs a pension review then he should consult an Independent Financial Adviser of his own choosing.

And has he obtained a new state pension statement? Have you?

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

OldMusicGuy

It depends on the pension schemes. There is no benefit in joining them together apart from ease of management and maybe more choices for investment. But they won't "do better" financially unless you change how they are invested.

You can start a pension yourself using a SIPP (self-invested personal pension) or maybe transfer to everything to one of the existing schemes. I consolidated six pensions into one, I did it all myself and it didn't cost anything.

You need to educate yourselves (preferably your husband does) before you start responding to adverts. There are a lot of dubious companies out there (and plenty of good ones) but unless you know what you are doing and why, you could end up paying for something that you could have done for free. And you might end up worse off depending on the investment choices the new company makes for you.

So get all the pension documentation and understand what your husband has. If he doesn't have documentation, just call the companies. There is also a free pension tracing service, see here: https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/trace-lost-pensions-and-request-pension-forecasts

Read up on the different types of pension on the Money Advice Service website or on the Pensionwise website here: https://www.pensionwise.gov.uk/en. Once you have an understanding of the different types of pension, what they are worth and if there are any conditions attached to them, you can then decide if you want to consolidate them.

kidmugsy

There's no need to consolidate them. There may or may not be advantages in consolidating them. You should probably begin by classifying them into three types.

(i) "Defined Benefit" e.g. final salary schemes. If the pension pays out some multiple of your husband's final salary with that company, usually with some uprating for inflation, then transferring would be (a) difficult, and (b) perhaps a bad idea anyway. Does he have any of this type?

(ii) "Defined contribution": here the employee and employer contributions form a "pot" of money that is invested in accord with your husband's instructions. There are two subtypes:

(iia) There are perks e.g. a GAR (guaranteed annuity rate). You need to establish if perks exist and if they are worth keeping.

(iib) No perks - then you want to check what the annual fees/charges are and how wide the investment selection available is. It may be worth transferring to get a wider selection or to reduce fees.

You could always come back here with the facts (disguised somewhat if you prefer) and ask for suggestions again.