Pension advice

mangosunshine

I need pension advice - I have a SW pension with my former employer worth £80,000 and I am due to retire in 2041.  100% of the funds are invested in SW Baillie Gifford (Series 2).  I am no longer paying into this pension and I am now working with the Civil Service.  Should I move this to the new pension with the Civil Service? Should I leave it with SW and move it to a better performing fund and if so, which one(s) do I choose?  I would appreciate your assistance.

Marcon

mangosunshine said:

I need pension advice - I have a SW pension with my former employer worth £80,000 and I am due to retire in 2041.  100% of the funds are invested in SW Baillie Gifford (Series 2).  I am no longer paying into this pension and I am now working with the Civil Service.  Should I move this to the new pension with the Civil Service? 

Have you obtained a quote from the Civil Service to see what a transfer in of the £80K would 'buy' in terms of extra benefits?

mangosunshine said:

Should I leave it with SW and move it to a better performing fund and if so, which one(s) do I choose?  I would appreciate your assistance.

Depends where it is invested now. Moving it to a 'better performing' fund doesn't mean that fund will stay better performing. What's your attitude to risk?

mangosunshine

No, I have not checked with the Civil Service what £80K would 'buy' in terms of extra benefits, but I will. Thank you for the advice.

mangosunshine

I don’t want to take too much risk as this is the largest pension pot that I have and I cannot afford to lose it.

DRS1

Be aware that there is a time limit on transfers into the CSS - 12 months (from joining?)

mangosunshine

I joined Civil Service 3 years ago.

mangosunshine

Is it wise to split the £80k between the top 10 performing SW Series 2 funds?

JoeCrystal

mangosunshine said:

I joined Civil Service 3 years ago.

Then you are too late. That route is closed to you.

SVaz

No, it’s not ‘wise’ to split between 10 top performing funds.  What’s top performing now might be bottom performing within a decade.

You need to decide what your risk profile is,  with 20 years to go, 80- 100% equities is the norm but can you handle the risk of that?

Do SW have ‘lifestyle’ funds that reduce equities automatically when you get a few years away from your specified retirement age?    They might be more in your comfort zone.

My only advice is to closely examine what SW have to offer and then decide accordingly,  maybe split into a couple of funds,  you need to take some risk as the pension needs to grow sufficiently for 30 years of retirement.   

Going too ‘safe’ now will cost you a lot of growth. 

Try using a compound interest calculator and plug in various growth percentages to give you a very rough idea. 

There’s £100k difference between 5% growth and 8% over 15 years.  

LHW99

If you aim to retire in 15+ years, you should have built up a good amount in the CS pension, which should have some inflation protection. Depending on how much you think you need to retire on (worth estimating) having three strands to your pensions (CS, old DC and SP) should put you in quite a good place.