S&S ISA+SIPP provider: FSCS protection 13 February 2022 at 9:58AM in ISAs & tax-free savings 2 replies 72 views

TraySelect

I have a SIPP [70k] and S&S ISA [150k] with the same provider.

I'm trying to understand what FSCS 'protection' I'd have if the provider [ii] went belly up.

ii is FSCS-authorised, so as I understand it, I'd have 85K protection in total.

Some Qs I've got:

- Have I understood FSCS protection correctly?

- Should I split the the S&S ISA, and transfer out to two new providers to keep each sum within the 85k per institution?

- What do other private investors in S&S ISAs and SIPPs do - obviously many SIPP values are way over 85k.

I'd really welcome clarification and views on this.

masonic

Investment accounts are normally operated as collective nominee accounts, in which assets are ringfenced from the operating company (unlike banks who use your money to finance their business). That means the FSCS protection for investments and pensions is against losses incurred due to fraud, negligence, and the costs of returning your assets, should the investment firm fail. These losses are vanishingly unlikely to exceed £85k even if you have hundreds of thousands invested. If a firm fails, then perhaps a small fraction of the assets under management will be subject to a shortfall, but that loss would be shared between all investors in the affected assets. Administrator costs will generally be capped below the FSCS limit. The larger the provider and more mainstream your investments, the lower the risk of exceeding the limit would be. Therefore most people should not worry about exceeding the £85k FSCS limit.

The more pertinent risk is that you may lose access to your accounts for a period of several months. If this would be a concern, then you might mitigate this by holding some of your accessible investments at a second provider so that you have some you could realise if you needed to do so at short notice.

TraySelect

@masonic Really helpful, thank you.