Rubbish Pension

Cloan2

My hubby is 54 and just getting round to looking at his pension. Silly I know and should have had the sense to do this years ago however we are doing it now. He has worked since age 17 and paid into a few pensions over the years. However when looking at the valuations his pension pot is only about 40k. Scary. Thinking of course now paying in more but no clue where to start. I assume a pensions advisor would be the first step? Just shocked at how low his pension pot is. Any advice on boosting his pension or actual schemes like private pensions he could pay into? Thanks

Grumpy_chap

Cloan2 said:

My hubby is 54 and just getting round to looking at his pension. Silly I know and should have had the sense to do this years ago however we are doing it now. He has worked since age 17 and paid into a few pensions over the years. However when looking at the valuations his pension pot is only about 40k. Scary. Thinking of course now paying in more but no clue where to start. I assume a pensions advisor would be the first step? Just shocked at how low his pension pot is. Any advice on boosting his pension or actual schemes like private pensions he could pay into? Thanks

Is that £40k all of his pension pots combined?
Are any of the pensions final salary / defined benefit?  They will not have a "pot" as such.
Has he checked his state pension forecast?  In fact, have you both checked your respective forecasts?

JayRitchie

Hi

Have you both checked your own state pension entitlements?

Does your husband work at present? If so how much does he earn and is he an employee of an organisation or self employed?

Linton

It is difficult to say much without a lot more information.

What is the name of the pension and what fund(s) is it invested in?
What % of his salary are he and his employer contributing?
It is a Defined Contribution pension and not Defined Benefits (eg final salary)?
You say he has paid into a few pensions over the years.  Is the £40K the sum total of all his pensions or just one of them? Has he always been a member of his employers pension scheme(s)?

Only £40K after 37 years working sounds remarkably low, but perhaps he wasnt a member of the schemes when young. Or perhaps there is a misunderstanding somewhere.

Cloan2

Yes, so we are both going to get full state pension entitlement. The 40k is the current value of his private workplace pensions. . He is employed, earns 30k. I earn 45k with a local gov pension and also paying into an avc. Just thought his pension pot would be more after paying into it all these years.

Linton

Cloan2 said:

Yes, so we are both going to get full state pension entitlement. The 40k is the current value of his private workplace pensions. . He is employed, earns 30k. I earn 45k with a local gov pension and also paying into an avc. Just thought his pension pot would be more after paying into it all these years.

The current minimum annual employer +employee DC pension contribution is currently 8%/year so in your husband's case even ignoring any investment growth £40K would be very low. If you can provide the extra information we should be able to explain what is going on.

Cloan2

Maybe it's our total lack of understanding of pensions to be honest. Today we logged in to the 3 different pension accounts that he has (3 different jobs over the years) and 40k was the total current value of them all. I think we are going to get a pensions advisor to sit down with us and go through it all. Thanks all

DRS1

I think we are going to get a pensions advisor to sit down with us and go through it all. 

Be very careful about that.  Read any number of threads on here and you will see people talking about the importance of using an IFA (not an FA) and then how tricky it is to find one.

There are some very clued up people on here who may be able to give you some helpful guidance but you would probably need to give more details about what he actually has for them to say anything useful.

Also bear in mind that you earn more than he does and you have a "gold plated" pension so he is never going to get up to your level of pension provision.

What you get out probably depends on what you put in so a starting point will be the contributions he and his employer are currently making and whether if he increased his contributions would his employer match that increase?

Answers to the other questions raised above will also help - you never know things may not be as bad as you think.

Cloan2

Thanks. Will dig out all the info and repost again with all the details. 

Baldytyke88

I have put money into a SIPP over the last 5 years and its value is £31k, I am 63

What is your pension pot, a company scheme or a private one?

Cloan2

He has 3 company pension schemes. Scottish Provident, Standard Life, Aviva. Just checked his payslip and looks like his employer pays 3% and he pays 5%. Not much at all. Thinking he needs to increase his contributions? What is a SIPP?