Should I Transfer My Old Pension

DavidAC

I have had a pension with Aviva for nearly 30 years. It has returned about 23% in the last 5 years which to me seems quite poor. I am not happy with the fund choices for switching that they have given me, since they are all ex Sun Life funds dating back to the early 80's and only one of them that is North America heavy has a significantly better return. My employer stopped paying into this pension years ago and my current employer pays into NEST.

Should I transfer my old Aviva pension? Any suggestions for who to transfer it to?

dunstonh

It has returned about 23% in the last 5 years which to me seems quite poor

Poor in relation to what?
Poor in relation to the previous 5 years that had no financial crisis events?  Whereas the last 5 years have had Brexit, Covid, a war in Europe, the ending of QE (giving the worst gilts return in over 100 years), energy crisis and high inflation.

 I am not happy with the fund choices for switching that they have given me, since they are all ex Sun Life funds dating back to the early 80's and only one of them that is North America heavy has a significantly better return.

Of course, that is looking backwards.  US equity has been best in the last decade.   However, the first decade of this millennium it was the worst.   As very often happens, the worst in one cycle is often the best in the next or vice versa.

Should I transfer my old Aviva pension? Any suggestions for who to transfer it to?

If it is better to then yes.  If it is not better to then no.

xylophone

If this is a standard DC pension, there should be no difficulty in transferring it elsewhere, whether to a SIPP or another personal pension.

You have a very wide choice of providers.

https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Or the likes of Standard Life or Aegon or L&G  etc

Pat38493

dunstonh said:

Of course, that is looking backwards.  US equity has been best in the last 10 decade.   However, the first decade of this millennium it was the worst.   As very often happens, the worst in one cycle is often the best in the next or vice versa.

Funnily enough I just saw it pop up the JP Morgan's number crunchers are saying that their models predict that US equities will fall by 20% this year, for whatever that's worth!

DavidAC

xylophone said:

If this is a standard DC pension, there should be no difficulty in transferring it elsewhere, whether to a SIPP or another personal pension.

You have a very wide choice of providers.

https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Or the likes of Standard Life or Aegon or L&G  etc

I have a Standard Life pension, it has also only returned 23% in the last 5 years. So what is regarded as an average return on a medium risk pension? Maybe I am expecting too much without investing in high risk.

dunstonh

I have a Standard Life pension, it has also only returned 23% in the last 5 years. 

Not quite.  The investments you have selected in the pension have returned 23% over the last 5 years.  The pension is just a container for your investments.

So what is regarded as an average return on a medium risk pension? 

What is your definition of medium risk?  (some peoples low risk is another persons high risk - timescale is important as well).  Maybe tell us how much stockmarket percentage you would select as a medium risk investor?  (that will help narrow it down)

Maybe I am expecting too much without investing in high risk.

defensive assets historically underperform growth assets.   Growth assets are more volatile but give you the real growth over the long term.  Defensive assets don't give you long term growth.  They just smooth out the volatility a bit.    Over the last 3 years, defensive assets have had their worst returns in over 100 years.   So, the more defensive you have been, the greater your losses have been.  It's been an unusual period.   Equities have been positive over the same period.

DavidAC

In the case of Standard Life my employer at the time selected it as a group personal pension. It is Stan Life Sustainable Multi Asset (PP) Pn S4 Fund factsheet | Trustnet, quite low risk. It has done well in its sector. SL don't have any funds I can switch to that have done significantly better, same as with Aviva (apart from one Aviva high risk fund). NEST retirement date, which my current employer auto enrolled me in, has performed significantly better and looks to be a similar risk. Aviva and SL only allow full transfers out and I have a significant amount in both built up over nearly 30 years, hence my hesitation.

QrizB

dunstonh said:

I have a Standard Life pension, it has also only returned 23% in the last 5 years. 

Not quite.  The investments you have selected in the pension have returned 23% over the last 5 years.  The pension is just a container for your investments.

So what is regarded as an average return on a medium risk pension? 

What is your definition of medium risk? 

I think (from his previous post) OP is mostly invested in Aviva UK Equity AP. Which seems quite a high-risk choice to me. HSBC GS Adventurous has done almost twice as well over the same period.

We probably all agree the UK's beeen a poor place for investment for quite a while.

Albermarle

DavidAC said:

In the case of Standard Life my employer at the time selected it as a group personal pension. It is Stan Life Sustainable Multi Asset (PP) Pn S4 Fund factsheet | Trustnet, quite low risk. It has done well in its sector. SL don't have any funds I can switch to that have done significantly better, same as with Aviva (apart from one Aviva high risk fund). NEST retirement date, which my current employer auto enrolled me in, has performed significantly better and looks to be a similar risk. Aviva and SL only allow full transfers out and I have a significant amount in both built up over nearly 30 years, hence my hesitation.

It is a typical 60% equities, medium risk fund.

If you compare it to a similar well known fund like Vanguard Life strategy 60, the SL fund has underperformed it by around 1% a year over the last 5 years. However with SL funds they usually have a 1 % fee that is then discounted so that might be part of the reason.

dunstonh

Albermarle said:

DavidAC said:

In the case of Standard Life my employer at the time selected it as a group personal pension. It is Stan Life Sustainable Multi Asset (PP) Pn S4 Fund factsheet | Trustnet, quite low risk. It has done well in its sector. SL don't have any funds I can switch to that have done significantly better, same as with Aviva (apart from one Aviva high risk fund). NEST retirement date, which my current employer auto enrolled me in, has performed significantly better and looks to be a similar risk. Aviva and SL only allow full transfers out and I have a significant amount in both built up over nearly 30 years, hence my hesitation.

It is a typical 60% equities, medium risk fund.

If you compare it to a similar well known fund like Vanguard Life strategy 60, the SL fund has underperformed it by around 1% a year over the last 5 years. However with SL funds they usually have a 1 % fee that is then discounted so that might be part of the reason.

Plus, the SL fund is a sustainable fund.  That usually means lower returns. 

DavidAC

I requested  to transfer all my Aviva UK Equity to Aviva Managed yesterday, but that hasn't  been good either. I have a 0.55% discount with SL to about 0.45%. Aviva are refunding management charges through extra fund injection. NEST according to fund tables has done better over just about every time period. Don't like their post retirement options though.

Chart Tool | Trustnet


Thanks all who have commented.