Seeking advice on contracted out Pru pension plan

Icterinewarbler

Hello,

I am no longer a UK resident and trying to understand a Prudential Personal Pension Plan started in 1989 (contracted out of serps).  On the last statement in April it reads as follows

• Current transfer value on 15 April 2025 was £64,800.00

• Selected retirement date is in 2032

• Current plan value (excluding Final Bonus) £23,700.00

• Final Bonus (we can’t guarantee this) £42,200.00

• Market Value Reduction (MVR) £1,120.00

• If you choose to take money out of your plan or transfer it, we won’t charge you an exit fee.

My question is about the final bonus which is huge and it states it is not guaranteed.  The more I read online the more confused I become as to whether to sit it out until 2032 or potentially transfer now elsewhere with the risk of losing that final bonus.  Perhaps this bonus is not even guaranteed in 2032 but I can't seem to get confirmation.  Prudential online help is poor, I even received a letter of apology yesterday saying that they wrongly stated there was a "guarantee" tied to my plan in recent communication.  I ask questions online through their portal but do not get proper responses.

Thanks in advance for any tips/advice.

senor_naranja

I was with Prudential purely for Contracting out of SERPS - I had much the same figire as you and decided to move it to another provider as there was no way to drawdown on it. They were actually useless at communicating anythign other than by letter, the website is next to useless , they have a messaging section which they do not use effectively enough. Upon asking for a transfer vaue and initiating the transfer from WTW , Prus comms was even worse, anything has to be done via letter(each once take two weeks from their dated latter to arrive) , nothing online. It took me 6 months and 2 attempts to get them to part with my money and then it disapearred into a black hole where I could not even login to the Pru site anymore. After phining them they said I would be gettign a letter confirming the transfer had taken place but it was another month before WTW was able to confirm they had now had the money from them. Awful and worrying experience.
My suggestion would be to take the transfer value that is offered , the final bonux is already included in that transfer value it would seem - it was with mine and looks to be the same with yours.

dunstonh

 The more I read online the more confused I become as to whether to sit it out until 2032 or potentially transfer now elsewhere with the risk of losing that final bonus. 

And if you do move it, then where you move it to can also lose value.   

The final bonus is effectively the variable amount from market movements.  Moving it to somewhere else that is also variable does not protect your final bonus unless you move into cash.  But then you will suffer low cash returns.

DRS1

I know you say there are no exit fees but there is a market value reduction.  It may not be the same with the Pru but with another with profits policy I had the market value reduction did NOT apply if you took the benefits at your selected retirement date.  It only applied if you transferred the pension before then or took benefits early.

Sometimes there will not be an MVR so you may be able to transfer without incurring it.  I know last year there wasn't one (but that was with Aviva not the Pru).  I think the only way to know is to phone them and ask.

I know the main fear is will the whole final bonus disappear.  I guess it is possible which is why they say it is not guaranteed but you would probably need some pretty disastrous investment conditions for that to happen.

If you do go ahead with a transfer what would you transfer it to?  If you are not in the UK any more then maybe it would have to be to a QROPS (whatever that is).  Or do you have another UK scheme which could accept the transfer?  Are you likely to come back to the UK and so want to keep the money in a UK pension?