Transferring Scottish widows pension.

Pikeman1

Been a bit nonchalant about my Scottish widows pension. Just got some old statement out and in 2013 it was worth just over £15000 April 2018 transfer value is nearly £21000. Looked on trust pilot and the reviews are terrible. Have some investments with hargreaves lansdown so may go with there sipp. Is there anything I should be aware of. Regards brian

MallyGirl

They were pretty painless to transfer to ii for me.

Dime_Bar

Pretty painless for me too for a smaller amount.

Pikeman1

Thanks for the replies that's reassuring

dunstonh

Looked on trust pilot and the reviews are terrible

Not that trustpilot is reliable.

For example, did trustpilot differentiate between AE schemes, ex Black Horse/Lloyds Bank schemes, ex Clerical Medical or other brand schemes, Heritage pensions, COMP/CIMPs handled by administrators etc?

Some of those areas are pretty good with SW. Some are pretty awful.

However, none of that really matters. Your service with SW is what matters. Not what someone else may have had on a product type you probably dont have.

Is there anything I should be aware of.

Do you have any safeguarded benefits (GMP, GAR etc). How do the charges compare? (HL is an expensive platform so you may actually be increasing your costs - the cheapest SW versions would have total charges lower than the HL platform fee by itself, let alone fund charge)

Pikeman1

Just a couple more questions. Where there any exit fees and did they transfer as cash? Cheers

Pikeman1

Thanks Dunston more to think about. I intend to start paying more into a pension and it's seems easier with h l to do that. They have a lot of funds etc to pick from.

menziesthefish

Just a couple more questions. Where there any exit fees and did they transfer as cash? Cheers

There shouldn't be any exit fees with SW, though a quick phone call to them to check wouldn't hurt. Check they don't have dealing fees too (again, there shouldn't be).

These days a lot of pension providers allow transfers to be done either as Cash (i.e. you sell your existing holdings and transfer the cash proceeds to the new provider) or what is known as 'in-specie', which is where the holding itself is transferred to the new provider.

In-specie takes longer and is reliant on both pension providers being able to do it, but if you're worried about being out of the market during the transfer then it's an option.

bowlhead99

I have my current workplace pension with SW and periodically transfer lumps out of it to AJ Bell from time to time when the value gets to a reasonable amount.

A transfer would go in cash (because your new platform such as HL would carry open ended funds or shares or ETFs or investment trusts, whereas you are likely currently invested in SW-branded insured pension plans which can't simply be moved over to other people's platforms. And then once the cash arrives, you could buy whatever you want inside your new pension wrapper at HL (or other provider of choice). Pretty painless.

However, my plan to transfer out as the money builds up is driven by not wanting to restrict myself to the internal SW funds; the external funds they offer when combined with the fee level my employer has with SW would be cheaper to buy on a DIY platform, and I am interested in arranging my own investment allocations using a variety of investment types. There is also the convenience aspect of stuff in one place rather than x hundred thousand in my main SIPP and x tens of thousands in the workplace one.

However, if you go to HL you will be paying 0.45% for just using the fund platform and that's before the management fees and operating cost of the funds you choose to buy when you get there - and HL don't give a discount on their SIPP just because you have other investment types with them. How does that compare with the fee scale you are on at SW?

You mention your pot grew by 40% or so over five years, but the basic performance you get from investing is driven by the type of funds you held, not the fact it is SW rather than someone else. If you're similarly nonchalant / disinterested about what you hold after you move it, you will probably get ballpark similar results or worse.

As Dunstonh says, if you're considering a move it is worth understanding what you might lose if you do (any special terms or benefits) and what fee scale you are on, which you could ask SW about. You could ask about exit charges at the same time.

Without wanting to sound insulting, it's laughable that a trustpilot review would be a motivator to move. The Trustpilot page for HL gives them two out of five stars (https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.hl.co.uk), but it's only based on 400 reviews, while HL have over a million customer accounts.

So out of every ten thousand customers, fewer than 4 have gone on to Trustpilot and done a review, and some of them say it's excellent; while others have had a moan or a rant. And of the ones ranting or giving low scores, there are people who appear to be annoyed about some pretty inconsequential little issue, people who write terribly, people who don't seem to understand investments, and may of course have vested interests etc etc. Meanwhile 9996 out of every 10000 don't have a review, but as many of them are knowingly or unknowingly paying the highest platform fees in the DIY market, and are still with the firm, it's fair to infer that the user experience and value for money is ok.

You are with HL for some investments and are thinking of moving another couple of tens of thousands to them from your own pension. So, you are not taking the 2 out of 5 score that HL got at Trustpilot to be important, because you know that in all honesty, Trustpilot scores for boring financial services firms are going to be garbage. And if that's the case, there is no point running away as fast as possible from SW just because its reviews are bad. Your own experience of SW for the last five years was fine: you didn't really need to contact them, and they gave you all the (zero) customer service that you needed.

I'm not saying you shouldn't move but there is no point jumping from the frying pan into the fire just because you couldn't be bothered looking at your investment options in the past and now you fancy a change which coincided with reading a bad review page for the SW organisation (which is largely complaints about services you don't use, by people who don't know better)...

Pikeman1

Many thanks for your thoughts. As you can probally tell a lot to learn. Trouble is at 62 not much time to Learn. Lol. I'll give sw a ring after easter and see where how I stand. Like you've pointed out hl are quite expensive. I like the vanguard funds but they don't do a sipp. I'll probally just muddle my way along. Appreciate your thoughts

Albermarle

in 2013 it was worth just over £15000 April 2018 transfer value is nearly £21000.

This type of ( quite good ) return would be typical of a medium risk multi asset/default type fund over that period.
If you had moved it to another provider ( HL for example ) in 2013 and invested it in a similar type of fund it would have probably given the same result .
As already said who the provider of the pension is , is less important than the funds the money is actually invested in.