Should I merge?

Duggo

HI,
After a little help please. I’m currently 54, already retired, and next year will take money from my pensions to bridge the gap to 60 when a final salary kicks in.
I have 3 pensions, combined worth just under £50k, and am considering merging them to make it easier to drawdown approx 6k a year. 

They’re currently with standard life, l&g and pru. As I’m paying fees on all three, I thought it would be better to switch to one low cost provider, maybe interactive investor, or Hargreaves’s … any thoughts or recommendations?
thanks

Roger175

Until last year, I also had 3 pensions (Pru, Hargreaves & AJ Bell) and made the decision to transfer all to AJ Bell. I am really glad I did this as I find it so much more convenient.

One word of warding, leave plenty of time with Pru, they were hopeless and whilst Hargreaves took 3 or 4 days, Pru took many weeks (I can't recall exactly how many now, but more like 8 weeks) and they were seriously incompetent with very poor communication.

Sarahspangles

Duggo said:

HI,
After a little help please. I’m currently 54, already retired, and next year will take money from my pensions to bridge the gap to 60 when a final salary kicks in.
I have 3 pensions, combined worth just under £50k, and am considering merging them to make it easier to drawdown approx 6k a year. 

They’re currently with standard life, l&g and pru. As I’m paying fees on all three, I thought it would be better to switch to one low cost provider, maybe interactive investor, or Hargreaves’s … any thoughts or recommendations?
thanks

A consideration at the moment is what you are invested in and whether you can transfer “in specie” or have to sell funds to realise cash to transfer. With volatile markets, you could be crystallising a loss and then out of the market while it is rising (or rather, recovering….)

Albermarle

You are paying fees on all three, but as fees are normally a % of the fund size, then you are not really paying in triplicate at all.
Having said that you could still save by moving but you need to really analyse the different cost carefully in advance.
As said you are probably best out of the Pru, their customer service is shocking.
L& G have to some extent reduced their presence in the retail investments and pensions market.
SL are still active and have good customer service and a good easy to use website.
Depending on what you are invested in their typical charge is 1% minus discounts based on the size of your funds.
Typical HL charge would be 0.7% to 1 %
II are better suited to larger accounts as they have a fixed charge,

You could also have a look at AJ Bell or Fidelity.

Duggo

Thanks for the feedback, and yes, I had wondered if this was a bad time to move things with the current uncertainty.  I think interactive investor was a fixed fee of something like 7.99 a month up to 50k, and I’m sure I pay more than that on one of my pensions. I still pay £2880 into standard life each year, as it’s the newest pension I have, so that’s one option. I think I like the simplicity for drawdown to have one scheme…

Albermarle

Duggo said:

Thanks for the feedback, and yes, I had wondered if this was a bad time to move things with the current uncertainty.  I think interactive investor was a fixed fee of something like 7.99 a month up to 50k, and I’m sure I pay more than that on one of my pensions. I still pay £2880 into standard life each year, as it’s the newest pension I have, so that’s one option. I think I like the simplicity for drawdown to have one scheme…

Regarding the comment in bold .

In theory moving pension providers can be done at any time without worry, as it is the investments not the provider that are important. However if you can not move the investments over directly and have to do it in cash there is a risk/opportunity  involved depending on if markets move quickly during the transfer process..

You will find with financial markets there are very regular periods of uncertainty, todays antics just being one of many over past years and no doubt many times in the future.