Any Experience using Scottish Widows to Drawdown Pension?

Steve_s1 · 14 April 2023 at 8:49PM

Hi, I'm approaching my (early) retirement date later this year and currently have a workplace pension with Scottish Widows.
They contacted me to say that I need to let them know what I'm doing and gave 4 options: 1. Flexible access (drawdown), 2. Cash in pension as lump sum (tax would be crazy!), 3. Buy annuity or 4. Leave as-is.
I want to take option 1, but have questions about what funds my money would be invested in, if I have a choice, annual fees etc. and can't find any such info on their website. I've emailed them 1 week ago but no reply so far. I've tried speaking to them in the past but that's a waste of time since you are on hold forever then get a swtchboard operator with no knowledge of their products.
Based on my experience so far SW have poor customer service, and limited fund options, so I'm thinking of transferring my pension to a SIPP with another provider, perhaps with AJ Bell or Interactive Investor.
Has anyone out there had any experience using SW to drawdown their pension? I'd love to know.
Thanks
Steve

Pat38493 · 14 April 2023 at 11:42PM

If you are not happy with their service you could indeed transfer your pot to another provider.

Also even within option 1 there are several sub options.

Regarding what your money is invested in, you should have the choice there and often you can leave the money invested in the same fund mix that it’s in already or choose something different.

As for chargers you would have to ask SW to explain but a lot of these older pension providers apparently are pretty slow - they seem to assume that us oldies are happy to wait a long time for an answer.

For AJ Bell or II their platform charges are pretty transparent and you can look them up on their websites.

oscarward · 15 April 2023 at 7:55AM

My workplace pension is with Scottish Widows. Agree about the customer service, call handlers can’t get internal teams to respond to them if it’s anything more than a balance enquiry.

I’m In a similar position of getting close to retirement, Googling ‘drawdown charges’ leads to the Which website where they compare suppliers.

SW comes out at a percentage depending on the amount in the fund ranging from .9% for less than £30k to (iirc) .3% for more than £50k.

Halifax looked attractive with a flat fee of £180pa.

tacpot12 · 15 April 2023 at 8:41AM

I moved from Scottish Widows because I couldn't get answers to my questions. It was much easier to move that than to persevere with them. AJ Bell have been very good. Lightyears ahead of SW for customer service.