Scottish widows pension confusion

engagedandopen

I have a Scottish Widows stakeholder pension.

Recently, out of the blue they sent me a form I hadn't asked for, offering me a range of lifestyle options and funds.  I chose Premier Adventurous targeting Flexible Access Series S, which they actioned.

Then I transferred in another pension.  This part appears to have gone into something different - Pension Portfolio One series 3.  So do about three months it hasn't been in the lifestyle profile I chose.

The other day, I received my annual statement (at least two months after the anniversary).

It says my stakeholder pension (now) has a bid-offer spread of 95%, so every £100 paid in results in only £95 being invested.  I checked and it didn't say this in my statement from last year.

It also says my charges are 1.30% on the same page it says my charges are a maximum of 1.00%.

It seems like they don't know what they're doing at all - is it worth persevering while they sort out their re-platforming to Embark?  It's a painful wait.

dunstonh

It says my stakeholder pension (now) has a bid-offer spread of 95%, so every £100 paid in results in only £95 being invested.  I checked and it didn't say this in my statement from last year.

Stakeholder pensions cannot have bid/offer spreads.  It is against stakeholder rules

It also says my charges are 1.30% on the same page it says my charges are a maximum of 1.00%.Stakeholders cannot exceed 1% p.a.   

Often, when looking at generic information, they will quote the maximum charge that may exist for a product.  However, it doesn't mean that you are paying that charge as your version may be cheaper.  

Marcon

dunstonh said:

It says my stakeholder pension (now) has a bid-offer spread of 95%, so every £100 paid in results in only £95 being invested.  I checked and it didn't say this in my statement from last year.

Stakeholder pensions cannot have bid/offer spreads.  It is against stakeholder rules

It also says my charges are 1.30% on the same page it says my charges are a maximum of 1.00%.

Stakeholders cannot exceed 1% p.a.   

Often, when looking at generic information, they will quote the maximum charge that may exist for a product.  However, it doesn't mean that you are paying that charge as your version may be cheaper.  

They can in then first 10 years, when charges are capped at 1.5% per annum, but must then be no more than 1%.

Scottish Widows have always capped their stakeholder charge at 1%, so there's clearly something which doesn't quite line up with what OP thinks they have. OP - are you sure you haven't transferred from SW's stakeholder to one of their non-stakeholder personal pensions?

Albermarle

Then I transferred in another pension.  This part appears to have gone into something different - Pension Portfolio One series 3.  So do about three months it hasn't been in the lifestyle profile I chose.

From my limited experience with a similar provider to SW. Changing your existing investments, and changing where your new contributions/transferred money are invested are separate actions. Although if this is what caused the issue ( as opposed to an error) then it should have been made clearer to you.

engagedandopen

Thank you for your replies dunstonh - for confirming stakeholder pensions should not have a bid/offer spread (Royal London's technical summary on stakeholder pensions confirms this, too) - and Marcon.  I opened it as an individual stakeholder pension in 2019 and since then one day they started referring to employee contributions as though the pension was a deferred workplace pension and lately it has a bid/offer spread of 95% and apparently an AMC of 1.3%, yet the annual statement which arrived just before Christmas still refers to it as a stakeholder pension.  It hasn't been transferred into their personal pension or retirement account, or anything else like that - at least not at my request.

engagedandopen

Albermarle said:

Then I transferred in another pension.  This part appears to have gone into something different - Pension Portfolio One series 3.  So do about three months it hasn't been in the lifestyle profile I chose.

From my limited experience with a similar provider to SW. Changing your existing investments, and changing where your new contributions/transferred money are invested are separate actions. Although if this is what caused the issue ( as opposed to an error) then it should have been made clearer to you.

Thanks, Albermarle.  Nothing has been made clear by SW.  I think their investment managers have some good ideas, but it doesn't translate to the servicing at all, unfortunately.  If you look at Standard Life, everything has to be in a lifestyle profile if you're using one, and SW don't use target date funds, so I'm concerned they've taken me out of the lifestyle profile even though I ticked it on a paper form and they accepted it.

dunstonh

Scottish Widows have always capped their stakeholder charge at 1%, so there's clearly something which doesn't quite line up with what OP thinks they have. OP - are you sure you haven't transferred from SW's stakeholder to one of their non-stakeholder personal pensions?

I decided not to list that as SW didn't have a version that allowed 1.5%.  Theirs was only available between 0.6% and 1.0%.  

I suspect the OP is looking at generic information rather than specific. e.g. fund factsheet information or isn't on the stakeholder contract any more.   SW are not moving SHP plans to the platform.  Just the old Zurich platform contracts and the SW Retirement Account.  

Albermarle

Just the old Zurich platform contracts and the SW Retirement Account.  

Do you know if they have any plans for the Zurich workplace pension business they bought around 7 years ago. I have a personal interest, as I still have this ex workplace pension.

So far it has been kept as a separate entity under the Money4Life name, although all the previous Zurich funds have been changed to SW ones. The website is a bit clunky ( although the charges are low) so I wonder if this might be next for updating/incorporating into the main SW platform/brand?

dunstonh

Do you know if they have any plans for the Zurich workplace pension business they bought around 7 years ago. I have a personal interest, as I still have this ex workplace pension.

Nothing I have seen mentions those.

Pure hypothetical guesswork but most of the other insurers have put their workplace pensions under one structure, their platform products under a different structure and have disposed of their old life & pension contracts (or kept them as they are but expectation is to run them down themselves or sell on later).

SW are using FNZ as their platform software supplier. That is good news as FNZ software is good.  However, they do not support workplace pensions (or stakeholder) out of the box.   It's possible SW could pay them to create that, as Vanguard did when Vanguard wanted a personal pension rather than a SIPP.  But I suspect that is unlikely and they will decide on a single separate workplace pension proposition and put all versions into that (either one of the existing ones or a completely new one).   I also suspect that SW will sell its legacy book to one of the consolidators once all that is done.  

engagedandopen

It's interesting that you say SW aren't moving SHPs to FNZ, Dunstonh.  Someone from SW said we would be able to view our pensions online again by the end of this month (January 2023).

My Premier Pension Portfolio 1 fund is in series 2, whereas series 3 is officially SW's series for 1% SHP.  According to feprecisionplus.com, it has a charge of 1.3% - which is what my annual statement, even though the annual statement still says I have a stakeholder pension with a maximum charge of 1.0%.  The Halifax app also refers to the pension as a stakeholder pension.  I don't know what 'series S' refers to; perhaps it would explain the emergence of the bid-offer spread.

dunstonh

It's interesting that you say SW aren't moving SHPs to FNZ, Dunstonh.  Someone from SW said we would be able to view our pensions online again by the end of this month (January 2023).

I am only going by the information supplied to us so far.   The Retirement Account as a failed platform attempt and Advance is an ex platform.  So, moving them to FNZ is logical.  Indeed, it would be nice to see the old girl back as a player in the marketplace if they code a decent front end and have the configuration quite open (unlike a some other recent FNZ converts who botched their front end and kept the configuration minimal).

I suspect they are referring to work being done on the legacy contract side that affects the SW originals, Black Horse Life, Halifax and Clerical Medical side of things.  They moved onto new systems but not FNZ.

According to feprecisionplus.com, it has a charge of 1.3% - which is what my annual statement, even though the annual statement still says I have a stakeholder pension with a maximum charge of 1.0%.

Generic fund factsheets always show the maximum default for the fund.     Historically for SW, the S3 range was stakeholder and the S2 range was personal pension.   They used to have a handful of external funds that had a higher charge but were discounted on the stakeholder