Moving pension pots for the best annuity

Roy1234

My wife will retire in 6 months time.  She has two private pensions, so needs to make some decisions.  She wants to take them both as annuities, as an inheritance has removed the need for any lump sum, and she dislikes the risk of drawing down from a finite pot.  I realise that draw-down might well mean more money, but she'd sooner have a steady, perhaps inflation linked income from an annuity.

We haven't yet asked for annuity offers from the two companies, nor from the wider market of such providers.  I note a recent letter from one of them asking her to ring their team if thinking of taking her pot elsewhere. I'm guessing that being effectively a 'customer retention' team.

Once annuity rates are known, she could take two separate annuities (if similar rates) from the two pension companies, or transfer the pot from A to B or else from B to A, to draw from the better of the two.  Or a third choice could be to transfer both pots away from the two companies and to a third annuity provider, if a better deal was found elsewhere.

Experience of others dealing with pension providers, admittedly a few years back, has been of glacial speeds and needing to get others involved/complain to expedite things.  As if they didn't want to surrender the pot.

Has anyone any advice on timings/difficulties around transferring the pot(s) if she chooses to move between the two companies or away from both?  And when should she ask for annuity rate quotes, given validity times?  Would they be worse if retiring just before her birthday rather than just after it?

DRS1

There is a thing with annuities and timing.  They usually say they will only quote for a start date which is say 30 days in the future (maybe longer in some cases).  But the chances of the annuity actually being in place by that date are slim.  I did two annuity purchases one in 2024 and one in 2025.  I started both around April and the annuities both started at the end of August.  If she wants the annuity to start in 6 months time I would say start now but expect the pension companies to say 6 months is too far away come back later.

If she asks the providers for information about starting an annuity they will send her a pack of information and it is well worth reading that carefully.  It will set out all the alternatives including Do Nothing!  It may contain special conditions for her policy - eg if it has a guaranteed annuity rate.  Sometimes the guaranteed annuity rate only applies if she takes the annuity on her selected retirement date.  She will then have to go back and say yes this is what I want - ie an annuity and then she will be asked to fill in an application maybe a health questionnaire or maybe a long call with someone to go through her health conditions.

This is because there are things called enhanced annuities which give you a better annuity rate where you have medical conditions or lifestyle factors like smoking. 

There are annuity calculators on Moneyhelper and Hargeaves Lansdown which she could play with to see who comes out best - it may be one or other of her current providers or it may be a third party.  She is fishing in a relatively small pool.  She might want to start with them to give her some idea of what she is looking at.

Compare guaranteed income products (annuities) -

Pension annuities | Hargreaves Lansdown

DRS1

Just to add that the annuity in 2025 was with the existing pension provider and the one in 2024 was a combination of 5 pensions which ended up with a third party.  So sticking with the existing provider is not necessarily quicker although you would hope it should be.

dunstonh

Once annuity rates are known, she could take two separate annuities (if similar rates) from the two pension companies, or transfer the pot from A to B or else from B to A, to draw from the better of the two.  Or a third choice could be to transfer both pots away from the two companies and to a third annuity provider, if a better deal was found elsewhere.

Unless there are safeguarded benefits, the latter option is usually best.

Experience of others dealing with pension providers, admittedly a few years back, has been of glacial speeds and needing to get others involved/complain to expedite things.  As if they didn't want to surrender the pot.

Some providers can produce all the necessary information within days.   Others can take month and need a lot of chasing.    The difference is purely service quality and levels.

Has anyone any advice on timings/difficulties around transferring the pot(s) if she chooses to move between the two companies or away from both?  And when should she ask for annuity rate quotes, given validity times?  Would they be worse if retiring just before her birthday rather than just after it?

Annuity providers typically use monthly and not annual rates.

Most providers no longer offer in-house annuities. Some have in-house sales teams but that is often not cost effective to use.

Roy1234

DRS1 said:

There is a thing with annuities and timing.  They usually say they will only quote for a start date which is say 30 days in the future (maybe longer in some cases).  But the chances of the annuity actually being in place by that date are slim.  I did two annuity purchases one in 2024 and one in 2025.  I started both around April and the annuities both started at the end of August.  If she wants the annuity to start in 6 months time I would say start now but expect the pension companies to say 6 months is too far away come back later.

If she asks the providers for information about starting an annuity they will send her a pack of information and it is well worth reading that carefully.  It will set out all the alternatives including Do Nothing!  It may contain special conditions for her policy - eg if it has a guaranteed annuity rate.  Sometimes the guaranteed annuity rate only applies if she takes the annuity on her selected retirement date.  She will then have to go back and say yes this is what I want - ie an annuity and then she will be asked to fill in an application maybe a health questionnaire or maybe a long call with someone to go through her health conditions.

This is because there are things called enhanced annuities which give you a better annuity rate where you have medical conditions or lifestyle factors like smoking. 

There are annuity calculators on Moneyhelper and Hargeaves Lansdown which she could play with to see who comes out best - it may be one or other of her current providers or it may be a third party.  She is fishing in a relatively small pool.  She might want to start with them to give her some idea of what she is looking at.

Compare guaranteed income products (annuities) -

Pension annuities | Hargreaves Lansdown

Thanks, this is very useful.  I will certainly play with the calculators.  I think I tried this a year ago and found Scottish Widows, by chance one of her two pension companies, to be about the best back then.  Hence wondering about moving the other into that one if this is still true now.

Incidentally, there are no health conditions that would enhance the annuity.  Just to clarify, if she asks now for an annuity quote from each, you suggest they may well say this is too soon.  I appreciate markets change and why they'd say that.  If either/both company does though, that'll leave us unable to compare the two until a month closer to retirement I presume?

.DRS1 said:

Just to add that the annuity in 2025 was with the existing pension provider and the one in 2024 was a combination of 5 pensions which ended up with a third party.  So sticking with the existing provider is not necessarily quicker although you would hope it should be.

How difficult/slow was it to move the funds around?  Some of the horror stories from the past I've heard were of many months of delays and interventions/complaints needed to get things moving.dunstonh said:

Once annuity rates are known, she could take two separate annuities (if similar rates) from the two pension companies, or transfer the pot from A to B or else from B to A, to draw from the better of the two.  Or a third choice could be to transfer both pots away from the two companies and to a third annuity provider, if a better deal was found elsewhere.

Unless there are safeguarded benefits, the latter option is usually best.

Experience of others dealing with pension providers, admittedly a few years back, has been of glacial speeds and needing to get others involved/complain to expedite things.  As if they didn't want to surrender the pot.

Some providers can produce all the necessary information within days.   Others can take month and need a lot of chasing.    The difference is purely service quality and levels.

Has anyone any advice on timings/difficulties around transferring the pot(s) if she chooses to move between the two companies or away from both?  And when should she ask for annuity rate quotes, given validity times?  Would they be worse if retiring just before her birthday rather than just after it?

Annuity providers typically use monthly and not annual rates.

Most providers no longer offer in-house annuities. Some have in-house sales teams but that is often not cost effective to use.

@dunstonh - When you say days or a month for getting information, what's your opinion on the time transferring money if she moves it away?

dunstonh

When you say days or a month for getting information, what's your opinion on the time transferring money if she moves it away?

Most providers are relatively quick on transfers.  A couple of days to a couple of weeks.  The auto-enrolment schemes tend to be sluggish by comparison, as are occupational pensions with professional administrators.

Auto-enrolment plans are also prone to delays as many are set up by the employer payroll team and many employees don't check or update the details when asked. So, often first names are missing.  Or it has a nickname or incomplete name.    AE schemes don't use much discretion and will often reject a transfer out on minor inconsistencies. 

It's mainly getting the information from the providers that is usually the issue.  I have been doing some housekeeping the last few days with my assistant and sending out chasers to providers that have not responded.  October to November were the initial requests.  I have one that was requested in July and has been chased 7 times and is in a death loop of repeating letters.  Another is with a Friendly society that refuses to answer important questions (such as safeguarded benefits) and its preventing it from moving on.

These are less common issues but potential ones.  So, starting your information gathering early is worthwhile.  Even if you delay the open market option/transfers until many months, or even years later.

DRS1

Roy1234 said:

DRS1 said:

There is a thing with annuities and timing.  They usually say they will only quote for a start date which is say 30 days in the future (maybe longer in some cases).  But the chances of the annuity actually being in place by that date are slim.  I did two annuity purchases one in 2024 and one in 2025.  I started both around April and the annuities both started at the end of August.  If she wants the annuity to start in 6 months time I would say start now but expect the pension companies to say 6 months is too far away come back later.

If she asks the providers for information about starting an annuity they will send her a pack of information and it is well worth reading that carefully.  It will set out all the alternatives including Do Nothing!  It may contain special conditions for her policy - eg if it has a guaranteed annuity rate.  Sometimes the guaranteed annuity rate only applies if she takes the annuity on her selected retirement date.  She will then have to go back and say yes this is what I want - ie an annuity and then she will be asked to fill in an application maybe a health questionnaire or maybe a long call with someone to go through her health conditions.

This is because there are things called enhanced annuities which give you a better annuity rate where you have medical conditions or lifestyle factors like smoking. 

There are annuity calculators on Moneyhelper and Hargeaves Lansdown which she could play with to see who comes out best - it may be one or other of her current providers or it may be a third party.  She is fishing in a relatively small pool.  She might want to start with them to give her some idea of what she is looking at.

Compare guaranteed income products (annuities) -

Pension annuities | Hargreaves Lansdown

Thanks, this is very useful.  I will certainly play with the calculators.  I think I tried this a year ago and found Scottish Widows, by chance one of her two pension companies, to be about the best back then.  Hence wondering about moving the other into that one if this is still true now.

Incidentally, there are no health conditions that would enhance the annuity.  Just to clarify, if she asks now for an annuity quote from each, you suggest they may well say this is too soon.  I appreciate markets change and why they'd say that.  If either/both company does though, that'll leave us unable to compare the two until a month closer to retirement I presume?

.DRS1 said:

Just to add that the annuity in 2025 was with the existing pension provider and the one in 2024 was a combination of 5 pensions which ended up with a third party.  So sticking with the existing provider is not necessarily quicker although you would hope it should be.

How difficult/slow was it to move the funds around?  Some of the horror stories from the past I've heard were of many months of delays and interventions/complaints needed to get things moving.dunstonh said:

Once annuity rates are known, she could take two separate annuities (if similar rates) from the two pension companies, or transfer the pot from A to B or else from B to A, to draw from the better of the two.  Or a third choice could be to transfer both pots away from the two companies and to a third annuity provider, if a better deal was found elsewhere.

Unless there are safeguarded benefits, the latter option is usually best.

Experience of others dealing with pension providers, admittedly a few years back, has been of glacial speeds and needing to get others involved/complain to expedite things.  As if they didn't want to surrender the pot.

Some providers can produce all the necessary information within days.   Others can take month and need a lot of chasing.    The difference is purely service quality and levels.

Has anyone any advice on timings/difficulties around transferring the pot(s) if she chooses to move between the two companies or away from both?  And when should she ask for annuity rate quotes, given validity times?  Would they be worse if retiring just before her birthday rather than just after it?

Annuity providers typically use monthly and not annual rates.

Most providers no longer offer in-house annuities. Some have in-house sales teams but that is often not cost effective to use.

@dunstonh - When you say days or a month for getting information, what's your opinion on the time transferring money if she moves it away?

In 2024 when I was combining multiple pensions into one annuity I did try to ask SW if I could buy direct from them.  They said No.  I ended up using a broker called Retirement Line.  They sort everything out and get the annuity provider to sort out the transfers.

The "horror story" bit for that exercise was that I was told it would take about 8 weeks so I called after 7 weeks to find out what the progress was only to find nothing had happened.  Ideally you should not have that issue and can just sit back leave everything to be handled by the annuity provider.  That didn't stop me checking every 5 minutes with the pension providers to see if the money had moved.  And there may be some forms you need to fill in for the pension providers (discharge forms)  

If you combine the two pensions with a third party annuity provider you may find the transfers happen at different times.  For me the first transfer arrived with the annuity provider on the 1st of August and the last one on 27th August.  People may tell you that it is quicker if both parties use Origo.  For me the paper based transfer was the first one to be completed beating any of the Origo ones by 10 days. 

You don't say if there are safeguarded benefits (a GAR would be the obvious one).  That may make a transfer tricky and perhaps not worth it as the GAR may well give a much better rate than the market rate.  SW have a leaflet explaining how their GAR works and what variations on the annuity can be available (eg I think you can't use the GAR with an index linked annuity).

As for the effective date of the annuity if you want to compare the two she could just tell them a date within 30 days of her asking for the quote.  Make it the same day for both providers.

There is another time issue which is how long the quote will be guaranteed for - when I started my process with SW in 2025 I am sure they guaranteed the quote for 45 days but sometime in the summer they changed that to 30 days.  But just to confuse matters if you had a GAR quote that was guaranteed for 90 days.  The point about the guarantee period is that if the money is not transferred to the annuity provider within that time they will do a new quote.  That may be a good thing or a bad thing but it made me very nervous especially when I had the experience of nothing happening for 7 weeks.  As it happened there was a new quote which was higher and they did extend the guarantee period

You may be thinking of moving the pension plans around before buying the annuity and then getting a quote from the provider you have landed on.  I am not sure that is worth it.  You may find that by the time the transfer is done the place where you have ended up is no longer giving the best annuity rates.  But if you are going to go for a combined annuity I don't think you can do that yourself.  You will need someone like Retirement Line or Hargreaves Lansdown or an IFA to sort it for you

Roy1234

DRS1 said:

Roy1234 said:

DRS1 said:

There is a thing with annuities and timing.  They usually say they will only quote for a start date which is say 30 days in the future (maybe longer in some cases).  But the chances of the annuity actually being in place by that date are slim.  I did two annuity purchases one in 2024 and one in 2025.  I started both around April and the annuities both started at the end of August.  If she wants the annuity to start in 6 months time I would say start now but expect the pension companies to say 6 months is too far away come back later.

If she asks the providers for information about starting an annuity they will send her a pack of information and it is well worth reading that carefully.  It will set out all the alternatives including Do Nothing!  It may contain special conditions for her policy - eg if it has a guaranteed annuity rate.  Sometimes the guaranteed annuity rate only applies if she takes the annuity on her selected retirement date.  She will then have to go back and say yes this is what I want - ie an annuity and then she will be asked to fill in an application maybe a health questionnaire or maybe a long call with someone to go through her health conditions.

This is because there are things called enhanced annuities which give you a better annuity rate where you have medical conditions or lifestyle factors like smoking. 

There are annuity calculators on Moneyhelper and Hargeaves Lansdown which she could play with to see who comes out best - it may be one or other of her current providers or it may be a third party.  She is fishing in a relatively small pool.  She might want to start with them to give her some idea of what she is looking at.

Compare guaranteed income products (annuities) -

Pension annuities | Hargreaves Lansdown

Thanks, this is very useful.  I will certainly play with the calculators.  I think I tried this a year ago and found Scottish Widows, by chance one of her two pension companies, to be about the best back then.  Hence wondering about moving the other into that one if this is still true now.

Incidentally, there are no health conditions that would enhance the annuity.  Just to clarify, if she asks now for an annuity quote from each, you suggest they may well say this is too soon.  I appreciate markets change and why they'd say that.  If either/both company does though, that'll leave us unable to compare the two until a month closer to retirement I presume?

.DRS1 said:

Just to add that the annuity in 2025 was with the existing pension provider and the one in 2024 was a combination of 5 pensions which ended up with a third party.  So sticking with the existing provider is not necessarily quicker although you would hope it should be.

How difficult/slow was it to move the funds around?  Some of the horror stories from the past I've heard were of many months of delays and interventions/complaints needed to get things moving.dunstonh said:

Once annuity rates are known, she could take two separate annuities (if similar rates) from the two pension companies, or transfer the pot from A to B or else from B to A, to draw from the better of the two.  Or a third choice could be to transfer both pots away from the two companies and to a third annuity provider, if a better deal was found elsewhere.

Unless there are safeguarded benefits, the latter option is usually best.

Experience of others dealing with pension providers, admittedly a few years back, has been of glacial speeds and needing to get others involved/complain to expedite things.  As if they didn't want to surrender the pot.

Some providers can produce all the necessary information within days.   Others can take month and need a lot of chasing.    The difference is purely service quality and levels.

Has anyone any advice on timings/difficulties around transferring the pot(s) if she chooses to move between the two companies or away from both?  And when should she ask for annuity rate quotes, given validity times?  Would they be worse if retiring just before her birthday rather than just after it?

Annuity providers typically use monthly and not annual rates.

Most providers no longer offer in-house annuities. Some have in-house sales teams but that is often not cost effective to use.

@dunstonh - When you say days or a month for getting information, what's your opinion on the time transferring money if she moves it away?

In 2024 when I was combining multiple pensions into one annuity I did try to ask SW if I could buy direct from them.  They said No.  I ended up using a broker called Retirement Line.  They sort everything out and get the annuity provider to sort out the transfers.

The "horror story" bit for that exercise was that I was told it would take about 8 weeks so I called after 7 weeks to find out what the progress was only to find nothing had happened.  Ideally you should not have that issue and can just sit back leave everything to be handled by the annuity provider.  That didn't stop me checking every 5 minutes with the pension providers to see if the money had moved.  And there may be some forms you need to fill in for the pension providers (discharge forms)  

If you combine the two pensions with a third party annuity provider you may find the transfers happen at different times.  For me the first transfer arrived with the annuity provider on the 1st of August and the last one on 27th August.  People may tell you that it is quicker if both parties use Origo.  For me the paper based transfer was the first one to be completed beating any of the Origo ones by 10 days. 

You don't say if there are safeguarded benefits (a GAR would be the obvious one).  That may make a transfer tricky and perhaps not worth it as the GAR may well give a much better rate than the market rate.  SW have a leaflet explaining how their GAR works and what variations on the annuity can be available (eg I think you can't use the GAR with an index linked annuity).

As for the effective date of the annuity if you want to compare the two she could just tell them a date within 30 days of her asking for the quote.  Make it the same day for both providers.

There is another time issue which is how long the quote will be guaranteed for - when I started my process with SW in 2025 I am sure they guaranteed the quote for 45 days but sometime in the summer they changed that to 30 days.  But just to confuse matters if you had a GAR quote that was guaranteed for 90 days.  The point about the guarantee period is that if the money is not transferred to the annuity provider within that time they will do a new quote.  That may be a good thing or a bad thing but it made me very nervous especially when I had the experience of nothing happening for 7 weeks.  As it happened there was a new quote which was higher and they did extend the guarantee period

You may be thinking of moving the pension plans around before buying the annuity and then getting a quote from the provider you have landed on.  I am not sure that is worth it.  You may find that by the time the transfer is done the place where you have ended up is no longer giving the best annuity rates.  But if you are going to go for a combined annuity I don't think you can do that yourself.  You will need someone like Retirement Line or Hargreaves Lansdown or an IFA to sort it for you

When you say SW would not let you buy direct from them, I thought the whole point was that you could take your other pension pots to whoever and agree an annuity value?  Do you mean you must deal with them via a broker?  That sounds like a recipe for extra charges if not extra delays, if that's what you mean?

Would having an SW pension already allow her to transfer in the other one to SW without a broker?

I'm not sure about Safeguarded benefits, I'll need to see if she has kept relevant docs.

I take your point about moving the pension pots around before retirement, which sounds slow.

I looked at the Money Helper link, well have started to.  The level of personal detail was far beyond what I expected.  Questions about Smoking & Cancer, I fine.  Ones about waist size, height, weight, alcohol consumption & high blood pressure (e.g. not sure if my range of BP readings have triggered that official flag) are trickier to answer accurately, especially for your wife!  How would something as hard to prove/variable as your booze consumption or waist size for example ever form the basis of an annuity quote?

dunstonh

When you say SW would not let you buy direct from them, I thought the whole point was that you could take your other pension pots to whoever and agree an annuity value? 

Correct.
However, do you buy your baked beans direct from Heinz or from a shop?
Annuities mostly have to be bought from a retailer.

Do you mean you must deal with them via a broker?  That sounds like a recipe for extra charges if not extra delays, if that's what you mean?

Actually, it tends to speed things up and lower the costs as the small number of providers that do retail direct to consumer tend to have higher commissions than IFA fees or brokers.   The higher the commission, the lower the annuity rate.    Plus, providers' own pricing tends to be default and does not have uplifts that some offer to IFAs and brokers.     

Product manufacturers have to have FCA permissions and processes for manufacturing.   Product distributors/retailers have FCA permissions and processes for that.   A product manufacturer that decides to retail has to get both sets of permissions and have all the systems and controls in place for both, along with paying extra sets of levies.   They have to be confident they are going to sell enough to justify the increased costs.  

Would having an SW pension already allow her to transfer in the other one to SW without a broker?

No.   Annuities are an insurance product.   Pensions are a pension product.  The two are dealt with by different teams and software.   The transfer of funds is done using Origo even when companies share the same logo.   (Origo is the electronic transfer system)

 How would something as hard to prove/variable as your booze consumption or waist size for example ever form the basis of an annuity quote?

They random sample check post sale (so if you are caught telling fibs, you could have an insurance fraud marker logged against you which would see your car insurance, house insurance any many other insurances sky rocket in price).

Many of the questions do not improve the annuity rate by themselves, but a combination of answers could.   Think Venn diagram.

DRS1

Roy1234 said:

DRS1 said:

Roy1234 said:

DRS1 said:

There is a thing with annuities and timing.  They usually say they will only quote for a start date which is say 30 days in the future (maybe longer in some cases).  But the chances of the annuity actually being in place by that date are slim.  I did two annuity purchases one in 2024 and one in 2025.  I started both around April and the annuities both started at the end of August.  If she wants the annuity to start in 6 months time I would say start now but expect the pension companies to say 6 months is too far away come back later.

If she asks the providers for information about starting an annuity they will send her a pack of information and it is well worth reading that carefully.  It will set out all the alternatives including Do Nothing!  It may contain special conditions for her policy - eg if it has a guaranteed annuity rate.  Sometimes the guaranteed annuity rate only applies if she takes the annuity on her selected retirement date.  She will then have to go back and say yes this is what I want - ie an annuity and then she will be asked to fill in an application maybe a health questionnaire or maybe a long call with someone to go through her health conditions.

This is because there are things called enhanced annuities which give you a better annuity rate where you have medical conditions or lifestyle factors like smoking. 

There are annuity calculators on Moneyhelper and Hargeaves Lansdown which she could play with to see who comes out best - it may be one or other of her current providers or it may be a third party.  She is fishing in a relatively small pool.  She might want to start with them to give her some idea of what she is looking at.

Compare guaranteed income products (annuities) -

Pension annuities | Hargreaves Lansdown

Thanks, this is very useful.  I will certainly play with the calculators.  I think I tried this a year ago and found Scottish Widows, by chance one of her two pension companies, to be about the best back then.  Hence wondering about moving the other into that one if this is still true now.

Incidentally, there are no health conditions that would enhance the annuity.  Just to clarify, if she asks now for an annuity quote from each, you suggest they may well say this is too soon.  I appreciate markets change and why they'd say that.  If either/both company does though, that'll leave us unable to compare the two until a month closer to retirement I presume?

.DRS1 said:

Just to add that the annuity in 2025 was with the existing pension provider and the one in 2024 was a combination of 5 pensions which ended up with a third party.  So sticking with the existing provider is not necessarily quicker although you would hope it should be.

How difficult/slow was it to move the funds around?  Some of the horror stories from the past I've heard were of many months of delays and interventions/complaints needed to get things moving.dunstonh said:

Once annuity rates are known, she could take two separate annuities (if similar rates) from the two pension companies, or transfer the pot from A to B or else from B to A, to draw from the better of the two.  Or a third choice could be to transfer both pots away from the two companies and to a third annuity provider, if a better deal was found elsewhere.

Unless there are safeguarded benefits, the latter option is usually best.

Experience of others dealing with pension providers, admittedly a few years back, has been of glacial speeds and needing to get others involved/complain to expedite things.  As if they didn't want to surrender the pot.

Some providers can produce all the necessary information within days.   Others can take month and need a lot of chasing.    The difference is purely service quality and levels.

Has anyone any advice on timings/difficulties around transferring the pot(s) if she chooses to move between the two companies or away from both?  And when should she ask for annuity rate quotes, given validity times?  Would they be worse if retiring just before her birthday rather than just after it?

Annuity providers typically use monthly and not annual rates.

Most providers no longer offer in-house annuities. Some have in-house sales teams but that is often not cost effective to use.

@dunstonh - When you say days or a month for getting information, what's your opinion on the time transferring money if she moves it away?

In 2024 when I was combining multiple pensions into one annuity I did try to ask SW if I could buy direct from them.  They said No.  I ended up using a broker called Retirement Line.  They sort everything out and get the annuity provider to sort out the transfers.

The "horror story" bit for that exercise was that I was told it would take about 8 weeks so I called after 7 weeks to find out what the progress was only to find nothing had happened.  Ideally you should not have that issue and can just sit back leave everything to be handled by the annuity provider.  That didn't stop me checking every 5 minutes with the pension providers to see if the money had moved.  And there may be some forms you need to fill in for the pension providers (discharge forms)  

If you combine the two pensions with a third party annuity provider you may find the transfers happen at different times.  For me the first transfer arrived with the annuity provider on the 1st of August and the last one on 27th August.  People may tell you that it is quicker if both parties use Origo.  For me the paper based transfer was the first one to be completed beating any of the Origo ones by 10 days. 

You don't say if there are safeguarded benefits (a GAR would be the obvious one).  That may make a transfer tricky and perhaps not worth it as the GAR may well give a much better rate than the market rate.  SW have a leaflet explaining how their GAR works and what variations on the annuity can be available (eg I think you can't use the GAR with an index linked annuity).

As for the effective date of the annuity if you want to compare the two she could just tell them a date within 30 days of her asking for the quote.  Make it the same day for both providers.

There is another time issue which is how long the quote will be guaranteed for - when I started my process with SW in 2025 I am sure they guaranteed the quote for 45 days but sometime in the summer they changed that to 30 days.  But just to confuse matters if you had a GAR quote that was guaranteed for 90 days.  The point about the guarantee period is that if the money is not transferred to the annuity provider within that time they will do a new quote.  That may be a good thing or a bad thing but it made me very nervous especially when I had the experience of nothing happening for 7 weeks.  As it happened there was a new quote which was higher and they did extend the guarantee period

You may be thinking of moving the pension plans around before buying the annuity and then getting a quote from the provider you have landed on.  I am not sure that is worth it.  You may find that by the time the transfer is done the place where you have ended up is no longer giving the best annuity rates.  But if you are going to go for a combined annuity I don't think you can do that yourself.  You will need someone like Retirement Line or Hargreaves Lansdown or an IFA to sort it for you

When you say SW would not let you buy direct from them, I thought the whole point was that you could take your other pension pots to whoever and agree an annuity value?  Do you mean you must deal with them via a broker?  That sounds like a recipe for extra charges if not extra delays, if that's what you mean?

Would having an SW pension already allow her to transfer in the other one to SW without a broker?

I'm not sure about Safeguarded benefits, I'll need to see if she has kept relevant docs.

I take your point about moving the pension pots around before retirement, which sounds slow.

I looked at the Money Helper link, well have started to.  The level of personal detail was far beyond what I expected.  Questions about Smoking & Cancer, I fine.  Ones about waist size, height, weight, alcohol consumption & high blood pressure (e.g. not sure if my range of BP readings have triggered that official flag) are trickier to answer accurately, especially for your wife!  How would something as hard to prove/variable as your booze consumption or waist size for example ever form the basis of an annuity quote?

I think @dunstonh has answered this but from me

I had an SW pension and that did not change the answer when I tried to buy an SW annuity direct from SW with an Aviva pension.   It was still no.

That may be a reason for thinking about doing a pension transfer first to get it all in one place and then buy the annuity.  I was able to buy an SW annuity direct from SW with the SW pension.

She can always ask both pension providers if there are any safeguarded benefits attached to her pensions.  That is probably the safest way to check.

Yes the health and lifestyle questions can take a lot of digging to complete - especially if they start asking about when did you start taking this medicine.  The weight and height stuff goes to the body mass index which seems to be a thing nowadays.  It was one thing which put me off having to do the medical stuff over the telephone - the fear that they'd ask something I had not prepared for and I'd spend an hour trying to find the answer.  I think @dunstonh will tell you that an IFA can tease out answers to these questions which can deliver better value (not false answers just the right sort of detail).

Roy1234

Thanks both, very interesting and more complex than I’d supposed.  So if I summarise correctly, she probably won’t be able to buy her annuity directly from SW even if she wants to, but would need a broker.  ‘If’ SW will sell directly, then she might be able to transfer her other pension pot to SW first to simplify that. Which @dunstonh thinks might be a mixed blessing.

Otherwise, she needs a broker/IFA to turn the pot(s) into an annuity.  This is a complete surprise to me; I honestly thought the pension company would ask you the health/widow pension questions etc then make you an annuity offer.  Is the pensioner left to find one themselves or does the pension company offer some affiliated agency?  What fees might she expect to pay in doing so?

I will ask her to enquire about safeguarded benefits.