Compare Charges Between These Two Pension Providers?

OhJustSomeGuy

I have a LifeSight pension pot from a previous employer which I'm considering transferring into my Vanguard SIPP.
I've heard that Vanguard have some of the lowest charges, but when I try to compare both it seems that Vanguard fees are much higher. However, I'm not sure if both charges sheets allow you to compare like with like. I've confirmed that their charges documents are publicly available without logging in.

LifeSight (EPA Towers Watson)
This was a Defined Contribution plan, so I won't be losing any special benefits compared to the Vanguard SIPP.
The LifeSight charges PDF is here:
https://epa.towerswatson.com/doc/LIF/pdf/CS-SA-PUR0011.pdf
The funds I hold are 'LifeSight Diversified Growth' which the document shows (on page 6) as having an annual fee between 0.278% and 0.290%.

Vanguard
The Vanguard charges PDF is here:
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/content/documents/legal/vanguard-full-fund-costs-and-charges.pdf
The prospective fund I'm comparing with is 'Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity Fund - A GBP Accumulation Shares' which shows a total annual fee of 0.39%.
Perhaps for comparison this should be reduced by the 0.02% transaction charge since I'm not contributing to the LifeSight pension. So, 0.37%.

I appreciate some might want to dismiss this post with "Find a good financial advisor".
However, the Vanguard charges are still much higher - I simply ask if I'm missing something?

Thanks.

TVAS

The question you need to ask is why the Towers Master Trust is cheaper than the Vanguard SIPP I suspect because the former negotiated a group rate because that Master Trust will holds thousands of members via employer workplace pensions which will have rules and limitations.

So go to them find out the limitations and see if you can live with them in exchange for lower charges.

If you go to an IFA they will persuade you to do you own SIPP so they can extract fees from you. 

El_Torro

I'm not sure I'd say that 0.37% is "much higher" than 0.29%. Rather than quibbling over 0.08% I'd be more concerned about the underlying investments and whether they suit my needs.

Employers often negotiate a good deal for their employees when it comes to pension fees. Especially large employers can do this as they have a lot of members to entice pension providers to give a lower fee to get the business. I can't say I've done much research on the subject but 0.29% certainly sounds like a good deal to me.

Depending on how big your pension pot is you may want to look at a platform that charges a flat fee, rather than the percentage fee that Vanguard charges. Like I said though, you need to look at the whole solution and go with a platform and investment that you are happy with. I don't think that simply looking for the dirt cheapest option is the right strategy.

Albermarle

There is a common misconception amongst many posters on this forum that 
Workplace pension must be bad /expensive
SIPP must be great  and cheap 
In many cases staying with the workplace pension is often actually the best option.

OhJustSomeGuy

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions.

I just wanted to quash any doubts I had that the LifeSight document might have been hiding something - such as hiding transaction fees by taking them out of the transaction amount, whereas Vanguard show the full breakdown of all charges.

I was also frustrated that on one hand the LifeSight website is full of glossy photos, pointless articles and links which lead round in circles, and yet they don't show any helpful meaningful data or charts. Also no matter what time of day or night you use it, their website seems deliberately slow. It's like they don't want you to know. Vanguard is the complete opposite; fast, simple and much more transparent.

However, given the low charges negotiated by my previous employer I've decided not to transfer out of LifeSight at this time.

ratechaser

Albermarle said:

There is a common misconception amongst many posters on this forum that 
Workplace pension must be bad /expensive
SIPP must be great  and cheap 
In many cases staying with the workplace pension is often actually the best option.

Indeed - my employer covers all fees on my current workplace pension - and were it not for the fact that the choice of funds is very limited, I'd probably have moved everything else I have in there before now!