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Consolidate my Pensions?
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sazandy25
Posts: 142 Forumite


Hi, I am currently 42 years old & I have ended up with 3 separate pension plans.
1) Aviva Pension Retirement Distribution AP - Total Value £10,967
I set up this up in 2007, I used to pay in £50 a month, (now reduced to £16)
2) Standard Life Managed pension fund FA - Total Value £19,113
Previous employer pension, NO longer pay anything in.
3) The People Pension Balanced profile - Total Value £4,459.87
Current employer pension, I pay 4% of earnings in - employer pays 3% (not the best)
I have recently received a statement (hence this post) and notice the charges being made & have looked into all 3 (maybe should of looked before?).
1) Aviva - £102.69
2)Standard Life £124.36
3) The Peoples Pension £2.50 plus rebate of £0.89 (Members pay an annual management charge made up of 3 elements – an annual charge of £2.50, a management charge of 0.5% on the value of your pension pot each year and a potential rebate on the management charge on savings over £3,000).
I am thinking of transferring the Aviva into the Standard life or transferring all into the Peoples pension, unsure what to do. Just don't see the point of having 3 ALL charging an annual fee, any guidance gratefully received.
1) Aviva Pension Retirement Distribution AP - Total Value £10,967
I set up this up in 2007, I used to pay in £50 a month, (now reduced to £16)
2) Standard Life Managed pension fund FA - Total Value £19,113
Previous employer pension, NO longer pay anything in.
3) The People Pension Balanced profile - Total Value £4,459.87
Current employer pension, I pay 4% of earnings in - employer pays 3% (not the best)
I have recently received a statement (hence this post) and notice the charges being made & have looked into all 3 (maybe should of looked before?).
1) Aviva - £102.69
2)Standard Life £124.36
3) The Peoples Pension £2.50 plus rebate of £0.89 (Members pay an annual management charge made up of 3 elements – an annual charge of £2.50, a management charge of 0.5% on the value of your pension pot each year and a potential rebate on the management charge on savings over £3,000).
I am thinking of transferring the Aviva into the Standard life or transferring all into the Peoples pension, unsure what to do. Just don't see the point of having 3 ALL charging an annual fee, any guidance gratefully received.
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I have recently received a statement (hence this post) and notice the charges being made & have looked into all 3 (maybe should of looked before?).With those small pension values, the charges levels are not really making much of a difference. e.g. a 0.10% difference is just £34 a year. Your value changes more than that in 10 minutes of market activityApart from the peoples pension, its likely that the other two are annual management charge only. So, whether you have one pension or three wont itself change the charges if all three had the same AMC. Its possible that the peoples pension is the most expensive one. But if your other two are older plans, they may be more.
Just don't see the point of having 3 ALL charging an annual fee,
I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.1 -
I would focus your initial effort on whether you can increase the size of your pension pot. £35k in the pension pot at 42 will not provide much in retirement and you will heavily want to increase it, in order to have a comfortable retirement or retire earlier."No likey no need to hit thanks button!":pHowever its always nice to be thanked if you feel mine and other people's posts here offer great advice:D So hit the button if you likey:rotfl:1
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Simon11 said:I would focus your initial effort on whether you can increase the size of your pension pot. £35k in the pension pot at 42 will not provide much in retirement and you will heavily want to increase it, in order to have a comfortable retirement or retire earlier.I was holding off from saying that but yes, 4%+3%+£16/month is not going to amount to very much, even over the next 25 years.Could you afford to increase your 4% to, say, 12%?N. Hampshire, he/him. Octopus Intelligent Go elec & Tracker gas / Vodafone BB / iD mobile. Ripple Kirk Hill member.
2.72kWp PV facing SSW installed Jan 2012. 11 x 247w panels, 3.6kw inverter. 34 MWh generated, long-term average 2.6 Os.Not exactly back from my break, but dipping in and out of the forum.Ofgem cap table, Ofgem cap explainer. Economy 7 cap explainer. Gas vs E7 vs peak elec heating costs, Best kettle!1 -
All these pensions have a % charge on the funds, so you are not paying triple. If you consolidate them all into one then you will just pay a % on a larger fund.
From your figures Aviva are charging around 1%; SL around 0.65% and PP around 0.5% with a small rebate.
If you consolidated all into PP , the rebate would be 0.25% do the annual charge would only be 0.25%.
So from a charges point of view, PP wins and Aviva loses.
PP has a much more restricted range of funds, but that would not bother most people.
As above , more important is to try and add more to build up the pot. You really need a large pot to generate a decent income/allow you to retire before state pension age .1 -
Thanks for all advice, am going to look at increasing % that I pay in to my current work pension & see if the company matches. (not likely, small family firm, but worth enquiring).
Also going to workout if either of the 2 others (Aviva & Standard life) have performed massively better. The standard life charge is less, so if its performed better, surely transferring Aviva in makes sense? (1 charge of 0.65% but performing better)
Thanks again for all responses0 -
sazandy25 said:Thanks for all advice, am going to look at increasing % that I pay in to my current work pension & see if the company matches. (not likely, small family firm, but worth enquiring).
Also going to workout if either of the 2 others (Aviva & Standard life) have performed massively better. The standard life charge is less, so if its performed better, surely transferring Aviva in makes sense? (1 charge of 0.65% but performing better)
Thanks again for all responses
Pension themselves do not perform, it is the investments inside them that perform. For example.
Within the Aviva pension your money could be in an investment fund that is 100% invested in US stock market ( pretty risky)
In this case you would have seen spectacular growth over the last few years, but quite a big slump this year, but overall some very good growth on average.
Then lets say in the SL pension you were invested in a middle of the road default fund with a mixture of shares and bonds, and a lot in UK. IN this case the growth in the last few years would have been pedestrian, but a much smaller drop this year, but overall only modest growth on average.
However this does not mean the Aviva pension has done better than the SL one. It means the investments in the Aviva pension will have done better. As both will have a reasonably good choice of investment funds then the choice of investment fund(s), is much more critical than the choice of pension provider.1 -
Albermarle said:sazandy25 said:Thanks for all advice, am going to look at increasing % that I pay in to my current work pension & see if the company matches. (not likely, small family firm, but worth enquiring).
Also going to workout if either of the 2 others (Aviva & Standard life) have performed massively better. The standard life charge is less, so if its performed better, surely transferring Aviva in makes sense? (1 charge of 0.65% but performing better)
Thanks again for all responses
Pension themselves do not perform, it is the investments inside them that perform. For example.
Within the Aviva pension your money could be in an investment fund that is 100% invested in US stock market ( pretty risky)
In this case you would have seen spectacular growth over the last few years, but quite a big slump this year, but overall some very good growth on average.
Then lets say in the SL pension you were invested in a middle of the road default fund with a mixture of shares and bonds, and a lot in UK. IN this case the growth in the last few years would have been pedestrian, but a much smaller drop this year, but overall only modest growth on average.
However this does not mean the Aviva pension has done better than the SL one. It means the investments in the Aviva pension will have done better. As both will have a reasonably good choice of investment funds then the choice of investment fund(s), is much more critical than the choice of pension provider.
Thanks for all advice 👍0
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