Providers that preserve protected pension age on transfer in?

Temrael

Bump for the Sunday morning crowd…

I wondered if anyone have any thoughts on how best to reduce the risk of this cash transfer? Ideally polite ones. 😊

I had another idea overnight, which was that I could switch to the Deposit fund in chunks, over several days. Wait for those orders to all go through, and then submit the transfer request.

This would spread the risk that after I submit my switch order something bad happens before it completes (and there's then a significant recovery before I'm reinvested on the new platform).

Again though, I'm not sure if this just gives the illusion of safety/control when it's actually just introducing more opportunites for what I'm worried about to happen, as the switches would take place on more days.

It would also increase the time I'm out of the market. As I say though, I think I'm less worried about missing out of a bit of growth for a few days vs. being caught out by a dip and a recovery at the wrong time.

I remember reading some thoughts on this from @dunstonh in another thread about an Aviva TK switch. He seemed to be advising against going to Deposit before a switch.

However, I think that may have been because the poster had already submitted their transfer request and then threw a switch to Deposit order into the mix after the fact.

I'm just not sure of what is rationally/statistically likely to be the safest way to proceed with the transfer. 🤔

It could very well be do just put the transfer order in and just hope a dip/recovery doesn't happen at just the wrong time between the liquidation at Aviva and the reinvestment on the new platform.

I think I'd still be tempted to do mine and my wife's seperately though.

What do we think?

NoMore

Personally, I don't care about being out of the market, due to a transfer, it could go against me, it could go for me, but as I'm intending to continue to invest before and after, I don't feel it really matters.

Temrael

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81894756#Comment_81894756

Thanks NoMore, the reason I'm nervy about it is I got caught out this way once before with a fund switch in my ISA.

The sale of the first fund went through just after some bad news on the stockmarket, everything dropped a couple of percent in one day.

However, by the time my purchase of the new fund completed, everything had shot up massively as there'd been some good news. See the red arrow below… 😥

The numbers this time are… bigger. Between my wife and I it will be well over half a million pounds.

Hence me asking if there's any good practice for how best to minimise the chance of being affected by a similar dip at just the wrong time.

hara____

Yes, it's a bit awkward when you can't transfer without being out of the market.

The options would seem to be -

• Transfer in chunks, if allowed
• Similarly, transfer your funds at a different time to your wife's
• Adjust your ISA asset allocation (if material) to offset the SIPP moves

With the first two, if you have the patience I'm sure you could negate much of the risk.

The last might backfire, if your ISAs and SIPPs are for held for different purposes. You don't want to move too much ISA to equities to offset more cash in the SIPP if a crash in the ISA would be more problematic than a crash in the SIPP.

What's the current asset allocation in the SIPP? Very high percentage in equities?

Temrael

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81896485#Comment_81896485

Thanks Hara, yes very high in equities currently.

I actually decided to go big bang and requested both transfers today. Expectations from Aviva and Vanguard are that it might only take a week. In an ideal world equities will tick down for the next week or so, so long as they don't then shoot up I should be ok.

One interesting thing is that Aviva say the price gets set when they receive the request and key into into their systems to begin the transfer. So long as the transfer doesn't drag on, that may serve us well.

Will see how it goes and update this thread with my experiences. :)

Temrael

Hi all,

I just wanted to feedback and thank those of you who gave me your thoughts and reassurance on transferring our main DC pensions out of Aviva. ☺️

We chose Vanguard in the end, as we're familiar with the platform (ISAs are there), drawdown looks a touch easier, and it was still a huge fees saving vs. Aviva.

With it being a cash transfer we were nervous about being caught out by market movements, but we seem to have gotten away with it. This was helped by the fact that the whole process took just 4 days! 😅

We requested the transfer on Monday morning and my wife's funds arrived at Vanguard yesterday (Thursday) in time for the 10:15am buying slot. My funds arrived at around 5pm (and will go back in to the markets this morning).

As I mentioned, I toyed with the idea of switching to cash at Aviva first, but decided against it in the end. Switch orders are priced (and settled) the day following the request, so there seemed no advantage to doing it ourselves (i.e. no more control than letting Aviva do the sells just before transfer). Also if we'd done it ourselves and the switch had hit a snag, we'd have been sat in cash for longer.

We'd been told by someone at Aviva that the price is set as soon as the transfer request is received. That doesn't seem to be the case, as we got a bit more than Monday's value. I think the price isn't set until Vanguard recieve a reply from Aviva and then formally instruct them to proceed (and Aviva do the sell orders).

The final piece of the jigsaw is for Vanguard to formally confirm with Aviva that we had age protection of 55 (and then confirm to us). It seems odd that this happens after the switch completes, but that's the way they do it apparently. I'm sure it'll be sorted in the next few days. Aviva are very clear we had the protection and Vanguard are very happy to take it on.

We're so relieved it all went quickly and smoothly, and thanks again for the input and reassurance. ☺️

hara____

Good to hear the transfers went smoothly. Let us know how straightforward it is to get the age protection confirmed.

Temrael

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81903242#Comment_81903242

Thanks Hara, it's certainly a big relief.

Will do, I guess it might even take a week or two, as there's less urgency for both parties now the switch itself is completed. But both Aviva and Vanguard seem very confident it won't be an issue to give/get the confirmation though.

I can't remember if someone mentioned it in this thread, or I read it elsewhere, but just for your own interest (if you didn't already know)…

Apparently Vanguard apply the age protection of 55 specifically to just the money that was transferred in from Aviva.

So only the switched monies (and their future growth) receive the age protection of 55.

Therefore, if I now started regular payments in to Vanguard then those contributions (and their future growth) would not be accessible at 55.

It's not an issue at all for me, as probably >95% of the total value of my pension at 55 would be accessible (as most of the money that ever will be in my pension, is already there).

This happens behind the scenes though, so only Vanguard have visibility of this notional split. You can ask them for the figure at any time though apparently.

hara____

Thanks Temrael, yes I've already seen that the protection only applies to the transferred funds. That seems to be a requirement, not just a Vanguard thing. And it's one reason I haven't yet moved my protected pot - I might push some new funds through it to gain protection, before then shifting elsewhere.

Temrael

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81903242#Comment_81903242

Hi Hara, just to report back on this…

Vanguard have now formally confirmed that my wife and I have a protected pension age of 55 on our transferred in funds from Aviva.

It took 6 working days to confirm my wife's, and 7 working days to confirm mine. So not too bad at all. :)