Standard Life; proposal to transfer all business to Phoenix Life Ltd

Albermarle

Even so....what? As you acknowledge, you are the one who has chosen to be in funds charging 0.85% pa when there are much cheaper funds available, including within the SL range of funds.

The normal modus operandi for most of the SL retail pensions seems to be a standard charge for standard funds of 1 to 1.1 % - with no platform charge. Then there are discounts, depending on the size of your pot . These can be bigger if you, or more likely your employer/ex employer, has negotiated a bigger discount.

You can have more expensive managed funds, or in some products there are a handful of cheaper funds, but in this case the discounts do not apply.

This is my experience of having a pension with them anyway. You can certainly pay less than 0.85% but difficult to go very low.

For them to be able to increase fees then your contract would have to have a clause already that allows them to do that and given both have the same parent company, probably the same staff making commercial decisions etc if such a clause exists its as likely to exercised under the current entity as the new one

I kept my 'employer discount' when I left the company, but they reduced the discount on some later new contributions without telling me. It took some correspondence to get to the bottom of that, during which I made noises about transferring and they actually increased the discount.

However they refuse to confirm the discount will stay in place if I move into drawdown ( it would have to be a new product/pensions) and on my SL app, on the charges page it says 'charges and discounts are not guaranteed and can change in future'

So as said , as the Phoenix management tighten their grip and fully assimilate SL, I will be on the lookout for any changes in level of service ( which has always been good and is now being partly outsourced) and charges/discounts. 

dunstonh

This is my experience of having a pension with them anyway. You can certainly pay less than 0.85% but difficult to go very low.

I frequently see SL pensions in the 0.3% range (net of discounts).   Broadly speaking, the larger the group scheme (in terms of money invested across the scheme) the greater the discount the employer is able to negotiate.

Rich1976

dunstonh said:

This is my experience of having a pension with them anyway. You can certainly pay less than 0.85% but difficult to go very low.

I frequently see SL pensions in the 0.3% range (net of discounts).   Broadly speaking, the larger the group scheme (in terms of money invested across the scheme) the greater the discount the employer is able to negotiate.

Then that’s probably why my work pension’s lowest charge with Standard Life is 0.63% for the Lifestyle fund ( as we don’t have many employees ) Any Trackers or managed options are close to 1% or more.

Gary1984

I moved a pension away from SL explicitly because of this ridiculous high charges with discounts model. It's absurd, just tell me the fee! That and I was always fearful they'd take my discount away without me noticing.

Albermarle

Gary1984 said:

I moved a pension away from SL explicitly because of this ridiculous high charges with discounts model. It's absurd, just tell me the fee! That and I was always fearful they'd take my discount away without me noticing.

You can nowadays clearly see the discount you are getting on the app. In the past it was less than obvious, especially if it was a special employer discount. I get a discount of 0.636% so for the standard funds I am paying around 0.41% all in , with no extra charges for anything. I have hope ( only that ) that I can get the discount increased in future, if I decide to transfer another pension to them. I remember one poster one here managed to get a discount of 0.75% with a bigger pot. 
If they reduce the discount I will transfer out.

dunstonh

Gary1984 said:

I moved a pension away from SL explicitly because of this ridiculous high charges with discounts model. It's absurd, just tell me the fee! That and I was always fearful they'd take my discount away without me noticing.

In most of their plans, especially workplace, they are mono charged with the discount not fund based.  i.e. its a fixed %.  The discount is hard coded to the plan.  

They cant take the discount away.

CharlieC2210

Thanks, everybody, for the reassurance, about SL, and about ups and downs in value of pension generally. I think I'll stop looking. Might even chuck my annual statements, unopened, in a drawer for 5 years, or 10.

Albermarle

CharlieC2210 said:

Thanks, everybody, for the reassurance, about SL, and about ups and downs in value of pension generally. I think I'll stop looking. Might even chuck my annual statements, unopened, in a drawer for 5 years, or 10.

Possibly a step too far in the other direction.....

flaneurs_lobster

Albermarle said:

CharlieC2210 said:

Thanks, everybody, for the reassurance, about SL, and about ups and downs in value of pension generally. I think I'll stop looking. Might even chuck my annual statements, unopened, in a drawer for 5 years, or 10.

Possibly a step too far in the other direction.....

Oh I don't know, worked perfectly well for me....

until I hit 65.

CharlieC2210

Albermarle said:

CharlieC2210 said:

Thanks, everybody, for the reassurance, about SL, and about ups and downs in value of pension generally. I think I'll stop looking. Might even chuck my annual statements, unopened, in a drawer for 5 years, or 10.

Possibly a step too far in the other direction.....

Thanks. What might be unwise in doing that?