Legal & General/Reassure Stakeholder pension transfer

donkeyotay

Hello Everybody,
We have two stakeholder pensions for our teenage daughters with L&G. We've just received the letters about the transfer to ReAssure; a company that I've not heard of and am having difficulty finding out about fees, funds etc. The booklet about the transfer is signally uninformative.
Presumably, I will the option to transfer to a provider of my choice, however I'm rather rusty on these matters.
What are the forums thoughts, if any, on the transfer and what companies offer a similar product to the L&G stakeholder pension.
Many thanks in advance.
Donkeyotay

SonOf

a company that I've not heard

In all likelihood, you wouldnt have head of many of best financial services companies. Not saying reassure are the best but just pointing out your knowledge of brands is probably better with the weaker ones.

After all, you have been with L&G and they haven't been interested in pensions for many years and you are in a contract that is largely out-of-date. It may still be suitable but its not likely to be cheapest or best.

Reassure is the modern name for a company that includes Windsor Life, Gresham Life, Grosvenor Life, Swiss Re, parts of Zurich's, Barclays, Guardian and HSBC old life & pensions book (amongst others).

Reassure is built around taking on the insurance company legacy books that are no longer wanted.

and am having difficulty finding out about fees, funds etc.

Why do you think those things are relevant to you?

Presumably, I will the option to transfer to a provider of my choice,

yes

What are the forums thoughts, if any, on the transfer and what companies offer a similar product to the L&G stakeholder pension.

Stakeholder pensions are largely niche nowadays and there are hardly any providers left.

Why do you think you need to move the pension? ReAssure are more in the market than L&G are.

JoeCrystal

Frankly, my thought is that since they already teenagers, it would not be long before they take over the control of them. At that point, once they start working, they can decide what to do with their pension pots, it might even be a learning experience on how to do the transfers into their workplace pension scheme. So, leave the pension schemes alone for now.

Boli

First time ever used a forum so apologies if I am making mistake's
I have been drawing a small with profits annuity pension from L&G which will pass to my wife on my demise (we are both 69yrs) young. L&G have just posted a letter to me saying that on the 4th November they will hand above Pension over to some obscure co called Reassure. If they feel they are unable to honour their existing contract. they are duty bound to return monies held against my name. The problem is going to be determining my wife and my life expectancy to work out a settlement sum. Any comments on this dilemma would be appreciated. Thanks.

JoeCrystal

Boli wrote: »

First time ever used a forum so apologies if I am making mistake's
I have been drawing a small with profits annuity pension from L&G which will pass to my wife on my demise (we are both 69yrs) young. L&G have just posted a letter to me saying that on the 4th November they will hand above Pension over to some obscure co called Reassure. If they feel they are unable to honour their existing contract. they are duty bound to return monies held against my name. The problem is going to be determining my wife and my life expectancy to work out a settlement sum. Any comments on this dilemma would be appreciated. Thanks.

What? It might be worth for you to start your own thread on this matter, however, you are not making sense here. Your pension income will be unaffected since it is Reassure that is paying it instead. So you won't lose anything from it.

Albermarle

If they feel they are unable to honour their existing contract. they are duty bound to return monies held against my name.

It is not that L&G have not got the money , it is just a business decision to move away from pensions and concentrate on other issues. Your position has not changed , only that you will be dealing with a different administrator.
These things happen all the time and nothing to worry about.

Malthusian

JoeCrystal wrote: »

What? It might be worth for you to start your own thread on this matter, however, you are not making sense here. Your pension income will be unaffected since it is Reassure that is paying it instead. So you won't lose anything from it.

While this is technically correct, Boli has a with profits annuity, and being taken over by a zombie pension company rarely has a positive effect on bonus rates.

Unfortunately this is not a very helpful thing to point out because there is nothing whatsoever he can do about it. That's with profits annuities for you.

The with profits fund will still exist, contain the same assets and therefore should in theory perform just as well as it did under L&G. However the fact that ReAssure will not be trying to get new business into their with profits annuities reduces the incentive to maintain good performance or ensure policyholders fully share in the long-term performance of the fund via the bonus rate.

ReAssure have assets under administration of £77 billion, not that far below obscure two-man-band Hargreaves Lansdown's £91 billion. They're hardly some guy in a shed, for all their faults "obscure" is not one of them.

Linton

Boli wrote: »

First time ever used a forum so apologies if I am making mistake's
I have been drawing a small with profits annuity pension from L&G which will pass to my wife on my demise (we are both 69yrs) young. L&G have just posted a letter to me saying that on the 4th November they will hand above Pension over to some obscure co called Reassure. If they feel they are unable to honour their existing contract. they are duty bound to return monies held against my name. The problem is going to be determining my wife and my life expectancy to work out a settlement sum. Any comments on this dilemma would be appreciated. Thanks.

It is nothing to do with not being able to honour the contract. Its purely because L&G dont want the hassle of running the administration of an old pension perhaps based on old computer software and hardware for what could be the next 30 years. So they agree a deal with another company that specialises in running closed pensions to take over the pensions assets, commitments and quite possibly the staff and equipment.


Pensions frequently move from one administrator to another. One of mine is on its 3rd.

SonOf

L&G have just posted a letter to me saying that on the 4th November they will hand above Pension over to some obscure co called Reassure.

ReAssure are not obscure.

If they feel they are unable to honour their existing contract. they are duty bound to return monies held against my name.

No they are not. You have no money held against your name. You have an annuity that pays an amount to you.

The problem is going to be determining my wife and my life expectancy to work out a settlement sum.

There is no settlement sum.

. Any comments on this dilemma

There is no dilemma. You have got the wrong end of the stick and have a bunch of incorrect assumptions.

While this is technically correct, Boli has a with profits annuity, and being taken over by a zombie pension company rarely has a positive effect on bonus rates.

Although most WP funds held by insurers that no longer want the book and are trying to offload it are zombie already. There was a report a while back that found that a good number of zombie WP funds were doing better after sale. L&G's WP fund is not great and ReAssure could do better. In reality, they are likely to be broadly similar.

JamesRobinson48

Like the OP, I was disappointed (and felt quite offended) to receive the letter about the imminent transfer of my stakeholder pension plan from L&G to "Reassure". The bulky printed materials from L&G failed to mention that I'm free to transfer my plan from L&G to another provider of my choice. I had bought the original plan based on L&G's famous name and reputation. Being unceremoniously ditched by L&G as part of a legacy "back book" did not "reassure" me at all.

So I immediately transferred all the funds in my L&G plan, as cash, to a SIPP with another provider, AJ Bell YouInvest. It's a lot cheaper than the L&G plan to run, and is very much more flexible both in terms of investment options and ways to ultimately withdraw the funds. The whole process, from my first call to the ill-informed and somewhat obstructive L&G phone helpline until receipt of investible funds in my new AJ Bell plan, was completed within four weeks. So there's still time for anyone affected to switch provider before the L&G/Reassure bulk transfer date.

I don't wish to suggest that an AJ Bell YouInvest SIPP is suitable for everyone or the best or cheapest of its kind. I've no connection with the company. It's merely the provider that I happened to choose.

SonOf

The bulky printed materials from L&G failed to mention that I'm free to transfer my plan from L&G to another provider of my choice.

Despite your annual statement telling you the transfer value every year and the initial documentation stating you can transfer the pension....

Why would this documentation need to tell you something you have already been supplied?

I had bought the original plan based on L&G's famous name and reputation. Being unceremoniously ditched by L&G as part of a legacy "back book" did not "reassure" me at all.

L&G's reputation on pensions hasn't really existed for the last 15 years. Just your preception.

So I immediately transferred all the funds in my L&G plan, as cash, to a SIPP with another provider, AJ Bell YouInvest.

The SIPP market is considered to have far too many providers and expectation is that you will see a number more failures and a lot more consolidation in the coming years. So, be prepared for this to happen again.

Chances are your L&G pension was out of date 15 years ago.