Aviva 98 Series Personal and Group Personal Pension

thingswerentthisbadinmyday

DRS1 said:

When I looked at switching funds in one of my (newer - so early 90s) Aviva policies I had a choice of 7 funds all with nice simple names like Aviva UK Equity, Aviva Overseas Equity, Aviva Fixed Interest and Aviva Index-Linked Gilt.

I suppose you could try running the mirror funds through something like Trustnet to see if that throws up any differences.  Sometimes insurers make available funds run by outside investment houses in case you might like eg Blackrock better than Aviva and of course funds with different managers can end up having very similar looking investments.  Maybe the difference will be in things like the charges or whether there is leverage.  Did you compare the past performance of the mirror funds?

Anyway if he is looking to de=risk the plan you can probably eliminate a few of the 30 funds quite easily.

Thank you.
There are 30 or so funds in the 98 PP scheme.
As you point out, those with names like “European equity, UK equity, US equity” etc are all quite straightforward and relatively easy to understand. Similarly, names like “mixed 40-85 shares, mixed 20-60 shares”.
Where it all gets a bit more complicated is when you see “Diversified Assets, v 1,2,3 and 4, Investments Pathways 1,2,3 and 4”. And yesterday, I became aware of another 3 funds called “My Future Focus”.
I think I’m getting there slowly!!

DRS1

Ah Those sound like new fangled things (designed to simplify investment choice).  Someone like @dunstonh can probably explain what they are about (or how to tell the difference).

Albermarle

Investment pathways were introduced to try and help inexperienced customers withdrawing from their pension pot.

AFAIK, all/most pension providers offer them and in a similar format. Here is an example from Fidelity, but you should find the Aviva ones very similar.

Investment Pathways | What is investment pathways? | Fidelity

thingswerentthisbadinmyday

Albermarle said:

Investment pathways were introduced to try and help inexperienced customers withdrawing from their pension pot.

AFAIK, all/most pension providers offer them and in a similar format. Here is an example from Fidelity, but you should find the Aviva ones very similar.

Investment Pathways | What is investment pathways? | Fidelity

Thank you.
Aviva have 4 and I like the way that they describe, in some detail, what type of investor they’re aimed at.
For someone who either doesn’t want to spend time, or perhaps isn’t a sophisticated investor, they do seem to serve a purpose.

Albermarle

It is not really a matter of customers not being sophisticated investors, or not wanting to spend time on the subject.
The majority are just totally clueless on the subject - hence the simple four investment pathways.