Pensions into one pot

mcpitman

Morning, looking for some advice on transferring pensions into manageable pots.

Currently have
1st work pension (scheme 1) - Pru
1st work pension (scheme 2) - Citi
2nd work pension (L&G)
3rd work pension (Scottish Widows)
4th work pension (current - Nest, potentially changing to Scottish widows)

How do I even start assessing and deciding where to put them as one pot, one management charge etc.

Please do explain this to me like I am a five year old. I am financially literate with the exception of the dark arts and wizardry of pensions.

MX5huggy

For each one you need to know the charges and what it is invested in. 

There may also be some guaranteed benefits for each one. 

You need to then decide what to invest in and with who. 

Different providers charge fees differently so total pot value is a factor.  0.15% is better on £50k but £10 per month is better on £500k. 

mcpitman

Would charges be the "Management charge" as a %?

Where would I find out about guaranteed benefits, is that in the annual paperwork issued etc?

Is PensionBee or similar a good place to have a look at? 

Marcon

mcpitman said:

Would charges be the "Management charge" as a %?

Where would I find out about guaranteed benefits, is that in the annual paperwork issued etc?

Is PensionBee or similar a good place to have a look at? 

Helpful reading: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-3550085/STEVE-WEBB-merge-small-pension-pots.html

grumiofoundation

mcpitman said:

Morning, looking for some advice on transferring pensions into manageable pots.

Currently have
1st work pension (scheme 1) - Pru
1st work pension (scheme 2) - Citi
2nd work pension (L&G)
3rd work pension (Scottish Widows)
4th work pension (current - Nest, potentially changing to Scottish widows)

How do I even start assessing and deciding where to put them as one pot, one management charge etc.

Please do explain this to me like I am a five year old. I am financially literate with the exception of the dark arts and wizardry of pensions.

As above for each pension look at the management charges. 

Having one management charge is not inherently better. Often charges will be % based so combining doesn't inherently make things cheaper. There is no difference between paying 0.25% on 5 pots of 10,000 and paying 0.25% on 50,000. 

How the charges work can be different for different schemes. 

It may be one % charge thats covers everything. It may be a platform % charge plus then % charges for each different investment.

Some of the pensions may have discounted/subsidised charges (sometimes this is not always displayed brilliantly).

There may also be benefits that you would sacrifice by moving to a different provider.

On top of that see link above re small pots. 

Overall though more important than the charges is what are you invested in? (One reason to potentially transfer would be in the provider doesn't offer the investments you like.)

One of the biggest reasons combining pensions is sensible for a lot of people is so they don't lose track of pensions (believe there there are billions in forgotten pensions) - as long as you keep a good record this isn't an issue. 

Albermarle

mcpitman said:

Would charges be the "Management charge" as a %?

Where would I find out about guaranteed benefits, is that in the annual paperwork issued etc?

Is PensionBee or similar a good place to have a look at? 

Some pensions have a management charge, often referred to as a platform charge . 
Then the funds your money is actually invested in have their own charge .

However some pensions make it simple and have just one charge , like Nest for example, but others also.

Pension Bee is just another pension provider , nothing special about them .

You will almost certainly have to stick with the pension your current employer is using .
So you could consolidate the others into that . Or leave that and consolidate the others into one of the existing pensions.
Or start a new pension and transfer all the old ones into that ( but not the current one ) .

It sounds a bit daunting but the mechanics of transferring these sorts of pensions is actually quite easy and free.
Unless one has guaranteed benefits , which you would probably not want to give up anyway.

One point worth noting is that the Pru' s customer service is very poor apparently, and both SW and L& G offerings are a bit dated . You hardly ever hear 'Citi' mentioned with respect to pensions.

mcpitman

Thanks all, that's some great stuff to start with, no doubt i'll be back with noddy questions later...........

Albermarle

This might help

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