pension - detailed statements including unit price and number of units

coyrls

Nine years ago, I transferred 4 separate "old style" pensions from 3 different providers to a SIPP.  I don't recall any lack of closing statements from any of the providers.  If you have any with-profits funds, they can be quite opaque, so other than checking that the closing statement value is the same as the value transferred, it's quite difficult to "check the workings".

LHW99

My takeaway from my experience is that before transferring from a pension provider - please login to the online portal make sure you download all the unit and price information and the last years history - from the providers web site - they will cancel your login before the final transfer and you will not be able to track your investments.

Probably the main point of your initial post.

Apart from that, I would suggest that having at least some knowledge of what / how much / how many units should be a basic part of keeping some eye on what you have.

From my experiences (not all recent):

New things don't always get set up because something didn't get passed through (thinking my early FSAVC policy application got lost between adviser and company)

Incorrect amounts are collected / applied (think I've read some threads here on that), and had it with salary in a new job, as well as pensions..

Transfers go slow, and something gets stuck / lost en route - remembering trying to transfer a SIPP, and it taking well over 6 months.

Additional benefits (eg widow / widowers pension entitlement) get incorrectly calculated because something in the data hasn't been updated - try finding the paperwork from 40 years ago to prove that!

MallyGirl

I mostly transferred as cash rather than in specie. The in specie one was very slow and painful but I did get the closing info on units/value.

peteasa

Thank you all for your comments.  I think that there is a silent majority out there that are not responding to my initial request for information about recent transfers.  At least I can remove some of my questions from my initial set.  I now have:

My question to anyone who reads this is: have you recently experienced similar lack of information from pension companies when transferring to a different provider? Why do pension companies now not send detailed closing statements with the value per unit and the number of units?

My takeaway from my experience is that before transferring from a pension provider - please login to the online portal make sure you download all the unit and price information and the last years history - from the providers web site - they will cancel your login before the final transfer and you will not be able to track your investments.

dunstonh

 I think that there is a silent majority out there that are not responding to my initial request for information about recent transfers.

You may get more responses if you were to name the providers you have used.  Especially as your earlier posts suggest, you are using tied sales reps rather than whole-of-market options.    Most of the regulars you see posting here use whole of market providers where the quality is better.    That may very well be the disconnect between what you are seeing and what I and others are seeing.

DeLaSole

Hi Pete,

My wife noted all investments held at Fidelity before switching them over to II last year. They went through correctly and all the transactions of the switch are still available to her on Fidelity's website (units/unit price). I know they also sent over cash they received into the account after the switch. I believe she received a letter in the post too, as is my recollection of her Aviva to II switch last year too, though that was cash switch only.

Best wishes.

peteasa

Ok, so no new replies for a time so here goes...

A little while ago I had pensions with Scottish Widows, Standard Life, Prudential, Nest, Axa that got move to Aviva.. and my wife had a pension that started with Capita that moved to Link Asset Services that moved to Waystone Management... Now before 2016 the pension companies sent quite detailed annual statements with number of units and price of the units after about 2016 they still sent annual statements with lots of pages - so they are not trying to cut down on paperwork - but they send only total value of the pension not a breakdown.  In my innocence I assumed that with the online access all would be ok.  Not so!  Over time I have moved these pensions into one pot. (well separate pot for my wifes pension).  Over time I have discovered that the amount of real information that the pension providers give you has reduced dramatically.  The worst was Nest who did not even send me a written letter telling me the amount of the completed transfer, and as far as I can tell did not publish ISIN numbers for the funds that my money was invested in.  Aviva said in the transfer complete letter that they "will correct any mistakes that they find"... this I think is unacceptable.  The pension provider should provide the necessary contract notes / closing statements to justify the numbers they come up with on a transfer.

I did not want to make this thread specific to any one pension provider because from my experience they have all reduced the amount of real information.  To date, even after complaining to Nest and then formally complaining to them, I still do not have from them on paper the amount that they transferred.   They state in the official complaint response that - they acknowledge that from the information that they have provided, I can only assume that they have made the correct calculations.  I noted that in the official complain response from Nest they made significant mistakes with the potted history that they sent me as part of the response... I suspect that even the Nest back office boys and girls do not find it easy to trace what has happened in an individual case.

Just have a look at the Ombudsman web site at the complains that have been addressed.. For example from a complaint about a transfer from Winterthur -> Hargreaves Lansdown 2006.
"Contract notes showed that the assets were disinvested on 27 and 28 February 2007 rather than 7th December when the original request was made."

Wow! contract notes!   Dates when the assets were disinvested!!!  It seems to me that in the last 10 - 20 year the pension providers have learnt from earlier complaints.  Now they send out just about nothing and hope that you do not chase them up or question the numbers they come up with.  There is no way that I could begin to create a formal complaint via the Ombudsman because I do not have contract notes I do not even have a letter telling me the value that was transferred from some of the providers.

Now in my case with the records that I have (and the information I seemed to have to force out of Nest) I think that the transfer values were about right (plus or minus about £20) so I do not feel there is any justification in me doing more probing.  However if millions of people feel the same thing or just rely on a third party to tell them confidently that its all sorted... then the pension companies could walk away with quite a bit of money without anyone knowing.... £20 x 1M is worth thinking about!

My takeaway from my experience is that before transferring from a pension provider - please login to the online portal make sure you download all the unit and price information and the last years history - from the providers web site - they will cancel your login before the final transfer and you will not be able to track the sale of your investments.