Help with Private pensions

dunstonh

 he always says he cant guarantee anything ad the annuities are a waste of time and dont touch Pension Bee

There is absolutely no point an IFA using pensionbee.   The IFA will have cheaper options than pensionbee.  

I wouldn't say an annuity is a waste of time.   They have been for most since 2008 as annuity rates fell so low.  You couldn't do much about it until 2015 when the rules changed.   Since then, annuity purchases have fallen off a cliff.    I can count the number of annuity purchases we have put in place on two hands and the majority had GARs (where they are still viable)

Annuity rates have been rising of late.  They are starting to become viable again for late 60s onwards where it is only needed for part of the overall income.  However, indexed annuity rates have not been rising by anywhere near enough. 

Both my wife and I really have doubts so before we go ahead and sign up I wanted to know is there a way we can find out ourselves about which companies are good to transfer to, whether we should out them all in one pot, what about annuities etc

You describe an IFA.   That is exactly what an IFA does.   It seems the problem you have is more down to a communication issue.    Some clients like to be told everything in detail.  Others just want the IFA to jump to the bottom line.   An IFA who has good communication skills will adapt to the individual.  If communication skills are not their strong point, then they may struggle.    It could be a personality or communication clash. 

You mention you have HL. HLs platform charge is 0.45% plus the fund charges.  RL by comparison would cost around 0.4% with no fund charges on top.  Plus, you get a mutual bonus annually as RL as still a mutual.    Going DIY can save you money if you DIY well and cost-effectively.  But if you DIY badly, it can cost you more money.        We have seen people on here and I have in person who went DIY to cut out the adviser and picked the in-house funds of the platform and were paying more than twice the cost they would have paid using an adviser.         

smallzoo2

Thanks for the comment. Obviously as an IFA you have a different point of view and would not really want people to make their own decisions as you feel your advice would benefit them and that is totally understandable but as my son often tells me who has been following the markets for years no-one can predict what will happen in six months time never mind 6 years.

We may take an IFA's advice and the funds they invest in fall off a cliff and quite often IFA's are many years away from retirement and sometimes don't understand how in your 60's life's priorities change, its not all about making money its about living your life to the full even of that means just taking a regular income from an annuity

Thanks though, certainly communication or should I say understanding is something our IFA seems to struggle with

xylophone

PENSIONS ( approx values )

AVIVA. -    Trf Value ( £ 57k) , Drawdown - No ,  With Profit fund

See

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/495377/pension-benefits-with-a-guarantee-factsheet-jan-2016.pdf

This is the "two policy" pension ?

Has Aviva told you that there is a "safeguarded benefit" within this pension?

dunstonh

Thanks for the comment. Obviously as an IFA you have a different point of view and would not really want people to make their own decisions as you feel your advice would benefit them and that is totally understandable but as my son often tells me who has been following the markets for years no-one can predict what will happen in six months time never mind 6 years.

Every client makes their own decisions.   The job of an IFA is to match the solution to the objective and explain why and the client decides based on that advice.   

That advice involves eliminating potential solutions. Some are easily filtered out. Some are more borderline judgement calls.  The IFA would be expected to justify the filtering and document and explain any borderline judgement calls.

Borderline calls or judgement calls should have greater discussion and documentation.    Obvious filtering out will have less discussion or consumer-presented documentation but will have more detail on the audit trails.    You may see a written report of 20 or so pages but behind the scenes, there are hundreds or thousands of pages on the file.

Advisers and consumers today are very lucky as the software allows so much more than previous generations.  Cashflow modelling, sustainability checks.     This software is very visual and can show your spending/income models and how they would have faired historically or stochastically giving you worst to best cases and everything in between.  Many of these will have a sustainability score or success rate (or words like that).  Others will just show the ages you ran out of money.   So, whilst nothing is guaranteed, if you know your scenario had a 99% success rate over the 20th century (two world wars, pandemics, depressions etc)  you would feel more comfortable with that solution than if the success rate was say 22%.

If the adviser was presenting you with a solution that only worked 22% of the time then the conversation is going to be very different to one at 99%.   

We may take an IFA's advice and the funds they invest in fall off a cliff and quite often IFA's are many years away from retirement and sometimes don't understand how in your 60's life's priorities change, its not all about making money its about living your life to the full even of that means just taking a regular income from an annuity

That is completely wrong unless the IFA is just out of university and has no life experiences and has only been doing the job for 5 minutes.    Most IFAs have been doing the job for decades and are acutely aware of changing needs.  Indeed, often the IFA has to impart that knowledge to the individual who is retiring because that individual has no experience of retirement but the IFA does.   IFAs are more aware of what happens in retirement as they see it across their client bank.  

It is also very common to switch methods and processes throughout retirement.  An annuity, at this time, is unlikely to be suitable for someone in their late 50s to early 60s but it could be in their late 60s to early 70s.  Fixed-term annuities are rarely suitable.  Generically they can fit a lot of scenarios but commercially, the terms are not viable to the consumer.  So, the adviser may well gloss over the weak options with very little coverage other than in the audit trail.   They should focus more on viable options.

The main conflict can be where the IFA is focusing on sustainability making sure you don't run out of money in your retirement - IFAs prefer to play it safe - and the individual is focusing on spending it, often too quickly and making it more likely to run out.

smallzoo2

Well in my experience you sound very good and not the usual from many I have spoken to. Thanks for the advice

patsy43

 find   fia in your area  unbiased.co.uk  get advice from three they should give you one hour free and only charge if you proced 

dunstonh

patsy43 said:

 find   fia in your area  unbiased.co.uk  get advice from three they should give you one hour free and only charge if you proced 

I would just add the caveat that unbiased is no longer an IFA directory.  They let FAs on there now.    In our area, if you do a search, none of the local directly authorised IFAs locally are listed apart from a couple of regional firms, a network firm and then a bunch of wealth manager FAs.

When unbiased turned from being a directory into a lead management service, many IFAs cancelled their subscription.

Pat38493

dunstonh said:

patsy43 said:

 find   fia in your area  unbiased.co.uk  get advice from three they should give you one hour free and only charge if you proced 

I would just add the caveat that unbiased is no longer an IFA directory.  They let FAs on there now.    In our area, if you do a search, none of the local directly authorised IFAs locally are listed apart from a couple of regional firms, a network firm and then a bunch of wealth manager FAs.

When unbiased turned from being a directory into a lead management service, many IFAs cancelled their subscription.

So what is the best way to find a local IFA then and be sure that they are truly an IFA?

dunstonh

Pat38493 said:

dunstonh said:

patsy43 said:

 find   fia in your area  unbiased.co.uk  get advice from three they should give you one hour free and only charge if you proced 

I would just add the caveat that unbiased is no longer an IFA directory.  They let FAs on there now.    In our area, if you do a search, none of the local directly authorised IFAs locally are listed apart from a couple of regional firms, a network firm and then a bunch of wealth manager FAs.

When unbiased turned from being a directory into a lead management service, many IFAs cancelled their subscription.

So what is the best way to find a local IFA then and be sure that they are truly an IFA?

Google is pretty good as that tends to show the firms that don't pay to use the likes of unbiased, trustpilot, vouched for etc.   Some of those charge a heck of a lot of money or take a percentage of the adviser fee.  
Firms that don't need to advertise, won't pay money to do so.

Adviserbook is a decent directory and they verify independent status.
PFS find an adviser doesnt show IFA status but it does show advisers in your area.  

A combination of google and adviserbook or PFS may be worthwhile.

Pat38493

dunstonh said:

Pat38493 said:

dunstonh said:

patsy43 said:

 find   fia in your area  unbiased.co.uk  get advice from three they should give you one hour free and only charge if you proced 

I would just add the caveat that unbiased is no longer an IFA directory.  They let FAs on there now.    In our area, if you do a search, none of the local directly authorised IFAs locally are listed apart from a couple of regional firms, a network firm and then a bunch of wealth manager FAs.

When unbiased turned from being a directory into a lead management service, many IFAs cancelled their subscription.

So what is the best way to find a local IFA then and be sure that they are truly an IFA?

Google is pretty good as that tends to show the firms that don't pay to use the likes of unbiased, trustpilot, vouched for etc.   Some of those charge a heck of a lot of money or take a percentage of the adviser fee.  
Firms that don't need to advertise, won't pay money to do so.

Adviserbook is a decent directory and they verify independent status.
PFS find an adviser doesnt show IFA status but it does show advisers in your area.  

A combination of google and adviserbook or PFS may be worthwhile.

And is there a definitive test or statement you can ask someone to prove their official status as an IFA?  Is it enough to say to them - are you an Independent Financial Adviser and if they say yes, that's fine?  I would think that there must be some way to actually validate this definitively?