Merging pensions - advice needed please

Hebrews12

I have 4 pensions - Reassure, People's Pension, Virgin and Avon Pension Fund.  I want to merge them all together to make it more manageable but I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on which 'pot' to merge them into?  My Virgin pension has the most money in it so I'm thinking that one might be best.  Am I right in thinking that I might lose a small percentage of the amount when I transfer over?  Thanks for reading. 

Brie

First thing to check is what the charges are on each.  And presuming these are all personal defined contribution type pensions rather than work ones whether there are any restrictions on any receiving a transfer in.  Also are there any benefits of staying in any, final bonus or something.  

MallyGirl

If they are all standard DC pensions then you shouldn't lose any money by transferring. You should look at the fees you are paying and maybe transfer to the cheapest one. Is the Avon one a DC pension?
How old are they - if old then they might not be as fully functional as a modern product.
What sort of values do you hold - it might be that there is a better choice out there which is none of the current ones

Marcon

Hebrews12 said:

I have 4 pensions - Reassure, People's Pension, Virgin and Avon Pension Fund.  I want to merge them all together to make it more manageable but I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on which 'pot' to merge them into?  My Virgin pension has the most money in it so I'm thinking that one might be best.  Am I right in thinking that I might lose a small percentage of the amount when I transfer over?  Thanks for reading. 

Are these all defined contribution pensions without any special benefits such as a Guaranteed Annuity Rate?

How old is each pension - ie are they 'old style' contracts with little flexibility about how you access your benefits?

Is online access to your account important and if so, which has the best and most user-friendly website?

What are the charges and fund performance like for each fund? Transferring to Virgin just because it's currently the biggest pot isn't necessarily best.

You wouldn't normally lose 'a small percentage' (or indeed any %age!) just by transferring, but it depends on the type of contract you have. You'd need to check each one.

dunstonh

My Virgin pension has the most money in it so I'm thinking that one might be best.  

Although Virgin pensions are expensive and largely obsolete.  They stopped offering them years ago.  Fund selection was dire too.  So, it depends on what your definition of best is.

Albermarle

Hebrews12 said:

I have 4 pensions - Reassure, People's Pension, Virgin and Avon Pension Fund.  I want to merge them all together to make it more manageable but I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on which 'pot' to merge them into?  My Virgin pension has the most money in it so I'm thinking that one might be best.  Am I right in thinking that I might lose a small percentage of the amount when I transfer over?  Thanks for reading. 

There is no logic in thinking that the biggest one is the best !

You might be best transferring them all into a new one altogether. Are any of them your current workplace pension?

Hebrews12

Marcon said:

Hebrews12 said:

I have 4 pensions - Reassure, People's Pension, Virgin and Avon Pension Fund.  I want to merge them all together to make it more manageable but I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on which 'pot' to merge them into?  My Virgin pension has the most money in it so I'm thinking that one might be best.  Am I right in thinking that I might lose a small percentage of the amount when I transfer over?  Thanks for reading. 

Are these all defined contribution pensions without any special benefits such as a Guaranteed Annuity Rate?

How old is each pension - ie are they 'old style' contracts with little flexibility about how you access your benefits?

Is online access to your account important and if so, which has the best and most user-friendly website?

What are the charges and fund performance like for each fund? Transferring to Virgin just because it's currently the biggest pot isn't necessarily best.

You wouldn't normally lose 'a small percentage' (or indeed any %age!) just by transferring, but it depends on the type of contract you have. You'd need to check each one.

OK, this post just shows how ignorant I am about the whole thing.  I'll have to look up Guaranteed Annuity Rate as that means nothing to me.  And defined contributions I guess is something to do with it being a work pension thing in terms of it coming out of my salary?

Am I able to find a good pension scheme and then transfer the lot into that if Virgin is not the right option? 

rjmachin

I have a pension with The Peoples Pension and the fee reduces the more you have in it by way of a rebate each month into your pension.

At the bottom of this page, you can use the slider to show in £ or % terms what your estimated fee would be per year:
https://thepeoplespension.co.uk/pension/basics/member-annual-management-charge/

This is my current pension that I and my employer is paying into, and I transferred my other pension (Aegon) in to this one.   It took about 6-8 weeks to transfer.

MallyGirl

Defined contributions (DC) means that there is a pot of money that you, and hopefully an employer, contributed to.
Standard DC should be easy to transfer.
Some older DC pensions come with benefits such as GAR and that makes it hard to transfer them elsewhere.

This is different from a defined benefit (DB) pension - maybe also known as final salary or career average - where there may or may not be a pot but what you get as a pension depends on the rules of the scheme and not the size of the pot. For example you might get a fraction of your final salary times the number of years service you had. This is the sort of pension you get being a teacher, in NHS, working for local government or civil service, police/fire.
Transferring a DB pension is generally a non-starter.

Finding out what you have gives the info to make a good choice.

dunstonh

I have a pension with The Peoples Pension and the fee reduces the more you have in it by way of a rebate each month into your pension.

PP is absolutely fine as an auto-enrolment provider for a small businesses but the OP is looking for individual plans and the retail marketplace is much more competitive with high quality plans offering much better online functionality and investment choice and at lower cost.   So, they are probably better off looking at those rather than an auto-enrolment scheme.

Linton

Once you have sorted out whether you can and want to,  and where to transfer your old pensions the process is straightforward.  You simply set up your new pension  and ask the new provider to transfer-in the old pensions.  They should do the rest.

The one option you will have to make is whether you want to transfer "in specie", ie keeping the same funds, or as cash. Whether you can trasfer in specie depends on whether the old funds are supported by the new provider. Most will be.