Looking for a new pension provider.

Moonwolf

My current £400k DC pension is with Standard Life and until now I have been happy enough but I need to move it. I’m looking for suggestions/recommendations.

Not my original plan but I found out that I can get an enhanced annuity of £7,900 pa for £150,000 (3% growth, 50% spouse and 10 year guarantee) and I could then use the £50k tax free sum sum and draw down some of the remaining £200k to cover the next seven years until my state pension kicks in.

However, I started the process with an IFA but when Legal and General requested the £200K they and my IFA were told that as I have begun to flexibly drawdown Standard Life don’t support partial transfers.

To be clear I have drawn down £30K of which £7,500 is tax free and there is £10k in the drawdown pot, and this is the only part that should be crystallised.

My only choice now is a full transfer out and look for a ne annuity quote.

As a result I am looking for a provider that will take a full transfer.

It should accept the transfer and allow a near immediate partial transfer as that is the point of the exercise. So I’m not looking for a best cashback deal if it forces a short term lock-in.

It should be low cost, I will be leaving £200k in and continuing to flexibly draw down, I’m currently paying 0.286%.

Ideally it should support UFPLS but should allow me to change the drawdown amount at the drop of a hat.

I’m still paying in £240 a month and want to continue doing this

I don’t really want to go through the IFA for this as I am happy managing the funds myself and don’t want to add a layer of charges.

My strategy is fairly basic, global tracker with separate UK heavy tracker to smooth exchange rate volatility and a couple of slightly lower risk funds to dampen volatility and perhaps draw from preferentially for a couple of years if there is a market correction, I’d like to be able to reproduce it.

SL BlackRock ACS World Tracker ex UK Equity Tracker Pn Fund (40%)

SL BlackRock ACS 50:50 Global Tracker Pn (35%)

SL Sustainable Multi Asset Pre Ret (AP Lump Sum) Pro (10%)

Standard Life Money Market Pension Fund (15%)

More background to previous plans and thinking is here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6489313/choices-choices

Lowtrawler

What can you not do with the Standard Life pension that you need to move?

squirrelpie

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860309#Comment_81860309

I thought that was obvious? Transfer £200K to Legal & General to buy an annuity and get £50K tax free.

Moonwolf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860309#Comment_81860309

They don’t support a partial transfer of half the fund to the annuity supplier.

QrizB

A bit of an out-of-the-box suggestion, but could you draw dow the £10k to empty that pot? Then you would't have a partially-crystallised pension any more, and SL might allow a partial transfer out?

Moonwolf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860421#Comment_81860421

No apparently the whole plan doesn’t support partial transfers. My IFA and I have both been around the houses on this.

QrizB

OK, I thought I'd ask in case you hadn't thought of it!

Lowtrawler

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860342#Comment_81860342

It wasn't clear the enhanced annuity was with Legal & General - usually any enhancement would come from your current provider.

Why are L&G providing you enhanced terms? Would SL not offer a similar enhancement?

Moonwolf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860453#Comment_81860453

I decided I wanted to try an enhanced annuity after trying a couple of sites and asked an IFA to see what the best deal they could get. This came out at £7,900 pa, which I think is around 10% over an unenhanced annuity for a 60 year in the same situation. Legal and General have had details from my GP. From reading on here, that is how I thought it was done, not by going to my pension provider who might not offer the best rates,

Albermarle

Standard Life are one of the main annuity providers.

If you have a pension with SL, you can get your annuity with SL directly ( if you are not a current customer of SL you have to go via an IFA, or a broker.).

I suspect that it would not be a problem to use half your pot for an an annuity with SL, and leave the other half in a SL pension, but I do not know that for sure.

Now normally it is recommended to not just get your annuity from your pension provider, but to shop around. However SL claim that as a SL pension customer asking for annuity quotes from them, they will also check the rest of the market. Not sure how this works in practice though.

Moonwolf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81860490#Comment_81860490

Thank you, I will try this. At least I already have a good figure to judge the quote by, one that was a bit higher than the ones I got from MoneyHelper.