Nervous chap here

johnnyren

Just recently been feeling I could be doing with a bit of reassurance from someone that my pension pot is being looked after correctly ,   is there someone out there who looks at these things and let me know if things are ok ,    maybe it's just the way the world is the now or I'm reading too many scary threads on here lol ,       but I'd happily pay for a good audit of my pension ,    is there a service out there ? 

dunstonh

is there someone out there who looks at these things and let me know if things are ok ,

IFAs fulfil that role. (FAs would as well but you should avoid them)

johnnyren

dunstonh said:

is there someone out there who looks at these things and let me know if things are ok ,

IFAs fulfil that role. (FAs would as well but you should avoid them)

Thanks ,   so even though I have an ifa looking after my pension at present ,   another one would take a look and let me know if all' seems ok ?

Marcon

johnnyren said:

dunstonh said:

is there someone out there who looks at these things and let me know if things are ok ,

IFAs fulfil that role. (FAs would as well but you should avoid them)

Thanks ,   so even though I have an ifa looking after my pension at present ,   another one would take a look and let me know if all' seems ok ?

Why do you need two to do the same job? If you don't have confidence in your current IFA, that's a different question.

Dox

johnnyren said:

dunstonh said:

is there someone out there who looks at these things and let me know if things are ok ,

IFAs fulfil that role. (FAs would as well but you should avoid them)

Thanks ,   so even though I have an ifa looking after my pension at present ,   another one would take a look and let me know if all' seems ok ?

How do you define OK? If your pension funds are invested in line with your risk profile, and you don't like how they are performing, that's not down to mismanagement by the IFA.

zagfles

Marcon said:

johnnyren said:

dunstonh said:

is there someone out there who looks at these things and let me know if things are ok ,

IFAs fulfil that role. (FAs would as well but you should avoid them)

Thanks ,   so even though I have an ifa looking after my pension at present ,   another one would take a look and let me know if all' seems ok ?

Why do you need two to do the same job? If you don't have confidence in your current IFA, that's a different question.

What's wrong with a second opinion?

OP - you could post your pension investments here, or on the saving board, with stuff like charges, age, retirement plans etc, people often do that even with IFA managed pensions and get plenty of opinions.

dunstonh

Thanks ,   so even though I have an ifa looking after my pension at present ,   another one would take a look and let me know if all' seems ok ?

You say you have an IFA looking after it at present.  That suggests you are paying them to provide an ongoing service.  That would include ongoing reviews which should include suitability of the pension and investments.   So, why would you need to pay a second one for doing the same job?

Or is it that you originally paid for an adviser to set the pension up but are not paying for ongoing reviews and these are therefore not taking place and you now want one?    If you employ and pay for an adviser on a transactional (one off/ad-hoc) basis, they do not continue to look after your pension.     They put it in place at the start and then do nothing after that unless you ask them to.

GSP

I can understand where the OP is coming from. There’s an awful lot of trust with your money put in someone you don’t really know.
I see IFA’s as all working in a shop and a lot of the time when you walk into that shop it’s pot luck who serves you and what kind of service you get. IFA’s are not robots and it would be interesting if someone went to three different IFA’s, would they get exactly the same service and advice? If you have doubts in yours, do you still stick with them or it could be out of the frying pan into the fire?
I came on here for opinions, how do we know if our IFA is delivering or not?
When it comes to fees, what is best one who charges a flat fee or one that charges a % of your fund balance at the time. Is the first just happy to take your money, is the second stopping you withdrawing your money so they get more?
Can’t see the problem coming on here asking if it makes you feel more comfortable at least.

Malthusian

Wanting a second opinion is very sensible but paying a second IFA for it would be excessive. The OP doesn't need to tell him he should be doing X Y and Z and invested in A B and C at this point, just whether what he is currently doing is OK.

If the OP posts what his pension fund is being invested in, what his strategy is (is it to provide for later retirement, is he drawing from it now, if so how much, how important is it in his overall finances, etc), and what charges he is paying the adviser, that will probably be enough for people down the pub to say whether he should look for another adviser or not.

Malthusian

I see IFA’s as all working in a shop and a lot of the time when you walk into that shop it’s pot luck who serves you and what kind of service you get.

But to continue your analogy, as long as you walk out with what you wanted, it matters little.

IFA’s are not robots and it would be interesting if someone went to three different IFA’s, would they get exactly the same service and advice?

No. But as long as the advice is good, the difference is likely to be marginal, and even when two advisers recommend different courses of action with a significant difference, both of them can still be right.

I came on here for opinions, how do we know if our IFA is delivering or not?

What do you want them to deliver? (You will get more responses if you start a separate thread rather than mixing it with the OP's.)

When it comes to fees, what is best one who charges a flat fee or one that charges a % of your fund balance at the time. Is the first just happy to take your money, is the second stopping you withdrawing your money so they get more?

Most people prefer a % because they don't like paying higher fees (as a proportion of the fund) when their investments are going down. Similarly it is inequitable for someone with £100,000 to pay 10 times as much to get the same value from advice as someone with £1 million to invest.
But if you don't see it that way you can ask for a fixed fee.

AlanP_2

OP - What does "OK" mean in your context?

What are you trying to achieve?

What "scary threads" on here are causing you to be nervous?