Over £85,000 in pension - should I open new one with another company

booklover500

My pension pot with Virgin Money has almost reached £85,000. Should I stop paying into it and open a new one to start paying into with a different company so that all my money will be safe as I will be protected by the FSCF should Virgin Money collapse or is it not worth paying two lots of fees to two different pension providers?  

A_T

the  85K protection is for cash held in bank accounts  and doesn't apply to investments

dunstonh

booklover500 said:

My pension pot with Virgin Money has almost reached £85,000. Should I stop paying into it and open a new one to start paying into with a different company so that all my money will be safe as I will be protected by the FSCF should Virgin Money collapse or is it not worth paying two lots of fees to two different pension providers?  

Virgin money offered a stakeholder pension and a personal pension. Both were pretty poor quality and mostly out-of-date compared to modern options.  Perhaps that should be a greater focus for you.

should Virgin Money collapse 

You are not invested in Virgin Money. So, that doesn't matter.   The FSCS could come into play if the administrator cannot find a buyer for the book (but it would).   In which case, the cost of administrator would be averaged across policyholders and each £85k would go towards the costs.    That would be more than enough (with plenty to spare) to cover the cost of moving liquid assets (which is all Virgin had).

or is it not worth paying two lots of fees to two different pension providers?  

Virgin money was mono charged at 1.0% (about 2-3 times higher than modern similar pensions).   If you had one pension at 1.0% p.a. or 10 pensions at 1.0% p.a. the charges would be the same.    

Albermarle

booklover500 said:

My pension pot with Virgin Money has almost reached £85,000. Should I stop paying into it and open a new one to start paying into with a different company so that all my money will be safe as I will be protected by the FSCF should Virgin Money collapse or is it not worth paying two lots of fees to two different pension providers?  

There are many experienced investors with hundreds of thousands of Pounds with one pension provider. Not an issue as long as it is a mainstream provider.
More important is that the investments you have  in the pension are suitable for you.

Audaxer

Although the £85k protection applies more importantly to cash savings, pensions are also covered - see FSCS link below:
Pension protection | Check your money is protected | FSCS

booklover500

Thank you all so much for your help and advice - I really appreciate it.

dunstonh

Just for clarification,  Virgin Money did not use insured pension funds.   So, it falls under the investment FSCS protection and not the insurance & pension FSCS protection.