What to do now?

madwomanintraining

My Sister is 58 and has a Classic Civil Service pension.  The value of it if she took it now is just under £3,000 a year and predicted at being just over £4,000 at 60.  She has a couple of other small pensions which are valued at just over £1,000 in total, and £700 in total, can she add these small ones to her Civil Service pension, and would it be wise to do so?  

Thank you in advance for any advice

Marcon

madwomanintraining said:

My Sister is 58 and has a Classic Civil Service pension.  The value of it if she took it now is just under £3,000 a year and predicted at being just over £4,000 at 60.  She has a couple of other small pensions which are valued at just over £1,000 in total, and £700 in total, can she add these small ones to her Civil Service pension, and would it be wise to do so?  

Thank you in advance for any advice

If she's already left employment with the Civil Service, no.

If she's still in service, then I think you'll find she transferred to Alpha in 2022? Alpha only accepts transfers in within 12 months of someone joining employment with the Civil Service, so I don't think she's got that option - but suggest she checks just to be quite certain.

If she can, then she needs to ask for quotes on what the transfer in would 'buy' her in the Civil Service scheme and then decide if she wants to go ahead. There's no magic 'right or wrong' answer.

madwomanintraining

She has left the civil service.  She left in the 90's.   Thanks for your thoughts Marcon.

xylophone

Is your sister still employed and if so, does she have a workplace pension that would accept the transfer in?

madwomanintraining

xylophone My sister is employed p/t but has only been there 18 months so it will only be another small pension.   

tacpot12

There doesn't seem to be any particular reason to transfer the pensions. There are no charges for leaving them where they are, and it is more likely that they have some inflation protection where they are.

She knows where they are, and it is simple enough to keep a list of the providers and any reference number associated with the pensions. She just needs to use the list to ensure she has claimed each pension when she is entitled to do so. 

madwomanintraining

I think tacpot12 she was thinking it would be tidier to have them all together and in one pension payment rather than a small monthly payment and several little ones that she will probably cash out as a lump sum.

GrumpyDil

If she has several little ones look at small pots options as merging them to get close to the small pots limit could be useful depending upon how many pension funds she has. 

xylophone

xylophone My sister is employed p/t but has only been there 18 months so it will only be another small pension.   

If the two tiny pensions are just standard DC pensions and she has another standard DC pension with her current employer, she might want to find out whether the current scheme would accept a transfer in.

Marcon

GrumpyDil said:

If she has several little ones look at small pots options as merging them to get close to the small pots limit could be useful depending upon how many pension funds she has. 

The 'small pots' regime won't matter to her unless she's planning to contribute more than £10K a year - and there's no evidence that's ever going to be likely, so she could just cash in the two small DC pensions if she wishes to do so.

GrumpyDil

Marcon said:

GrumpyDil said:

If she has several little ones look at small pots options as merging them to get close to the small pots limit could be useful depending upon how many pension funds she has. 

The 'small pots' regime won't matter to her unless she's planning to contribute more than £10K a year - and there's no evidence that's ever going to be likely, so she could just cash in the two small DC pensions if she wishes to do so.

Good point as forgot that the limit has gone up from 4k to 10k (and friend I was talking to about this last night is very likely to want to pay in more than 10k a year). And the fact OP only has two pots to worry about rather than the several my friend had. Teach me to read the post properly.