'Middle of the road' pension provider

Anonymous101

inkydolphin said:

Anonymous101 said:

For someone in your wife's position I'd think that just opening a low cost SIPP at someone like Vanguard and then picking a low cost all in one fund such as the "Life Strategy 60% equity" fund or a target retirement date (as noted above) would be the best bet.

Thanks for the response. So reading your post and the previous replies, you open a SIPP, you then tell the SIPP provider which of their investment products you want them to use to manage the money you put into the pension, and that together forms your pension plan. The reason for a pension over savings is the tax benefits, and there's a chance you could get a very good return, but equally there's a chance you could get back less than you put in. Is that about it?

One question I would have is do pension providers let you change the investment option or does that vary between providers?

That's about it. You're correct about the tax treatment. The underling investment can be the same in various "wrappers" ISA, LISA, Pension etc. So your comment about the chance of a good return or chance of loss etc holds for each of those. Its dependant on the investment not the wrapper.

Managing a SIPP these days is much more closely relatable to managing a bank account than perhaps what you might think. Everything is online and visible with most providers so its more a case of depositing monies and selecting your own investments than being lead by an advisor or the provider. If you want / feel you need that level of service than there's additional fee's to consider and that would possibly be counter productive given the level of investment you indicated.