Taking pension pot of £41.000

nicter

Hi
I have an old frozen pension with royal london ( taken out with co-op originally)
I am retiring at the end of this year and called R.L to ask to take out the £41.000
I am informed that i need to take regulated financial advice before taking this out 
As this is likely to cost around £1000 is there any other way I can release this money in the next 12 months without having to take this advice?
Maybe convert to a drawdown policy and take out that way ?
I will have a private pension and state pension so would prefer this policy in a lump ( or several lumps ) if possible 
Any advice would be much appreciated
Thankyou

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Can you confirm the specific reason why advice is required?

xylophone

I have an old frozen pension with royal london ( taken out with co-op originally)

Can you confirm, is this a S32 policy with GMP or another type of policy  with safeguarded benefits (Guaranteed Annuity Rate)?

What reason is given for the advice requirement?

nicter

There is nothing to say it is A S32 policy with GMP 
Its called  a pension annuity policy
When I called RL I was told it is a government  requirement if a pot is over £30.000 that regulated financial advice is needed 

nicter

Just to add I have 5 options 
1) one cash payment
2)a secure income for life and let RL shop around on the market
3) a secure income for life and I search the market 
4)take pension pot more flexibly  ( seroes of payments)
5) Defer claiming pot
For option 1 and 4 I am required to take regulated financial advice  

Dazed_and_C0nfused

nicter said:

There is nothing to say it is A S32 policy with GMP 
Its called  a pension annuity policy
When I called RL I was told it is a government  requirement if a pot is over £30.000 that regulated financial advice is needed 

There is no such generic rule.

Is it definitely a defined contribution scheme?

nicter

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

nicter said:

There is nothing to say it is A S32 policy with GMP 
Its called  a pension annuity policy
When I called RL I was told it is a government  requirement if a pot is over £30.000 that regulated financial advice is needed 

There is no such generic rule.

Is it definitely a defined contribution scheme?

Im afraid I dont know
I took this policy out in 1988 and paid in for around 5 years before I froze it due to going into employment with a good pension scheme 
All the documentation says is "Pension annuity policy" and I get a yearly statement detailing annuity annual bonus and lump sum annual bonus 

Marcon

nicter said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

nicter said:

There is nothing to say it is A S32 policy with GMP 
Its called  a pension annuity policy
When I called RL I was told it is a government  requirement if a pot is over £30.000 that regulated financial advice is needed 

There is no such generic rule.

Is it definitely a defined contribution scheme?

Im afraid I dont know
I took this policy out in 1988 and paid in for around 5 years before I froze it due to going into employment with a good pension scheme 
All the documentation says is "Pension annuity policy" and I get a yearly statement detailing annuity annual bonus and lump sum annual bonus 

Sounds as if your policy has something known as 'safeguarded benefits', which is why there's an advice requirement. It's possible the person you spoke to was referring to your particular type of policy, so may well have said the advice was required because the pot is over £30,000 without trying to drown you in any more jargon than was strictly necessary!

That being so, you are indeed required to take regulated advice for options 1 or 4.

This is probably heavier reading than you'd like, but it does explain pretty clearly what 'safeguarded benefits' are and when advice is required: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/495377/pension-benefits-with-a-guarantee-factsheet-jan-2016.pdf

dunstonh

I have an old frozen pension with royal london ( taken out with co-op originally)

It wont be frozen. It will be paid up.

As this is likely to cost around £1000 is there any other way I can release this money in the next 12 months without having to take this advice?

CIS plans frequently have GARs which are a safeguarded benefit.   I suspect a) £1000 is a bit cheap for wanting to get an adviser to overrule a GAR and b) you may be lucky to find an adviser willing to take it on full stop.

tacpot12

£1000 does seem very cheap for the advice, although the transfer amount is quite small so the adviser may be discounting their service in the light of this, but it is also possible that you have had a quote from an unregulated adviser. Have you checked out the adviser thoroughly? I would want to see the FSA registration, at least three years accounts at Companies House, and their directors home addresses. 

To sum up the comments above, you need to pay for advice if you want to have the money. 

I paid for this sort of advice about five years ago, and it cost me £1000 then, and that was before the FSA cracked down on bad advisers and the insurance premiums for advisers undertaking this sort of work sky-rocketed.

xylophone

CIS plans frequently have GARs which are a safeguarded benefit

And yet the OP says that his  annuity options are

2) a secure income for life and let RL shop around on the market

3) a secure income for life and I search the market 

What exactly is the guarantee?

Or is the policy set up like this?

https://www.royallondon.com/siteassets/site-docs/rlcis/mkt2625_rl_04_2019_p2.pdf

OP, can you transfer out without advice?