Pension Question

dunstonh

Duns ..i was really referring to yur bit about being more expensive and for more experienced investors....the costs of a sipp have come down significantly over the last few years

They have come down in price. However, so have personal pensions and stakeholders.

If you buy the products on like for like distribution channels (to avoid any cost bias favouring one or the other) then a great number of people would find that if they bought the same funds on a personal pension, that the personal pension would be cheaper.

I have a personal pension with access to 1000 unit trust/oeic/sicav funds in much the same way as HL and I pay less charges. If I was to go to any of these "low cost SIPPs" (as they are often promoted) I would pay more in charges than the personal pension.

and i dont think they r jus for experienced investors...some experience yes

Advisers are getting frequent warnings at the moment that SIPPs are being used far too much for people that shouldnt have them. The average person doesnt have the skills necessary to use one. Problem is that a lot of the people supporting the use of SIPPs as a mainstream product either have the experience and believe everyone else is at their level or they believe they have the experience and knowledge when they do not.

SIPPs are successful because they are being well promoted. The media have fallen in love with them and is heavily promoting them with the backing of the SIPP providers who are advertising heavily. However, you do have to remember that the media fell in love with tech stocks as well and were promoting those. They also promoted endowments in their day as being a good thing.

We have three levels of product to suit three different types of individual. To assume the SIPP is right for everyone is just wrong. To assume that only SIPPs have modernised and improved is also wrong. Some of these new personal pensions (especially the post A day generation personal pensions) are great and give you the best of both worlds.

nyway no desire to fall out with u...jus wish u and Ed cud b a tad more friendly to each othr ..since u r both invaluable posters

Nothing to fall out about. Healthy discussion is great.

Dont worry about myself and Ed. We have been been round here too long and we agree on far more things than we disagree on and often the things we disagree on are just presentation of the information.