How good/bad do you think my current pension is?!

jamesd

The fund charges are 0.15% and that's very cheap for actively managed funds. It appears that there's another £900 a year in other charges, about 0.90%, presumably for the pension product. 0.9% for that is high if it's not partly going to a financial adviser for ongoing advice.

jamesd

Black_Cat2 said:

Wow, quite depressing on how little a large pension pot can get you over a year. 

That's because they assume that you'll spend it on buying an inflation-linked annuity that pays just 1.8% of the pot value as income. Alternatives include:
1. state pension deferral pays 5.8% per year of deferral but you can only buy it slowly, by delaying claiming or suspending.
2. income drawdown can pay about 3.5% with uncapped inflation increases. Or initial 5% using the Guyton-Klinger rules that sometimes skip inflation increases  or make extra cuts or increase depending on how the investments do.
3. other annuity types or buying annuities later.

dunstonh

It is a shame the focus has been on charges, which is the scheme of things is minor compared to the shortfall that currently appears to exist in the objective.

HarryGray

Whilst charges and investment performance are important, the real point here is whether circa £100,000 is a good position to be in at 46. You say you want to retire at 60 so you have 14 years. I would focus more on increasing your contributions and worry later about switching to a new provider for cheaper fees. Your pension value is slightly on the low side (if this is your only pension). 

Otherwise, yes it is pretty expensive and a Fidelity SIPP or Vanguard SIPP may be more appropriate if you are comfortable doing it yourself.. 

Albermarle

simonp said:

Thanks everyone. Some really useful advice. I know for sure I need to increase my contributions and will have a look around for some (safe) alternatives!

Not sure what you mean by safe .
If you mean a secure platform/pension provider that will not run off with your money , then no issue there if you stick to mainstream providers.
If you mean safe as in your pension pot will never go down in value , then you are looking for the Holy Grail .
All investments can go down as well as up , although we all hope/presume the long term trend is positive .

simonp

dunstonh said:

It is a shame the focus has been on charges, which is the scheme of things is minor compared to the shortfall that currently appears to exist in the objective.

That's because that's what I was asking about? I said in my original post I was aware I needed to up my contributions.