My Wealth Private (Wealth At Work)

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82005265#Comment_82005265

As mentioned in a previous post, the main role of any financial advisor is not to beat the market, but to make sure you are invested appropriately for your age, risk tolerance, future objectives etc. Plus to make sure you are invested in the most tax efficient way. For sure some of these pushier large companies will try and make out they can beat the market, but will keep that part deliberately as vague as possible.

Managing your own investments may seem fine for you ( and me ), but the majority of the public are clueless/not interested in this area.

Yorkie1

Definitely leave your DB pension where it is.

I have my S&S ISA with W@W, through initial presentations on the civil service pension scheme through work. No pressure sales, to be fair.

I would say that their initial funding charges for the S&S ISA are probably high, their ongoing charges are probably higher than elsewhere, but I can have a meeting with my advisor about my general financial plans without further charges whenever I want. Would I be better off by not using them? Probably, if invested in appropriate funds. Am I thinking about whether to stay with them? Quite possibly, but that's a thread for another time when I have head space to think about it. I am lucky enough to have a decent DB pension when I get that far, so it is not as important to me to get every penny out of these investments as it might be for others.

tigerspill

I was with BT and have a BTPS.

I remember the W@W sales people coming in to do presentations. I went to many of these and all they were interested in were selling their services. Unfortunately this was before I knew anything about financial planning.

I fell for their patter and invested some money with them. It was only afterwards that I realised that their fees were huge and their products mediocre at best in my opinion. I moved on fairly quickly to Vanguard MA funds. Then diversified further over the years as I learned and my circumstances changed.

Don't do anything with your BTPS pension - it's as good as it gets.

I wouldnt touch W@W with a barge pole as there are so many much better and cheaper options. In fact, there are few worse in my opinion.

artyboy

I'm quite surprised that any employer would want to be seen to be associating with this, given the private pension misselling scandals of the past. Hardly sounds like W@W have any product that could realistically improve on most occupational schemes, let alone any that are DB in nature…

wjr4

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82007962#Comment_82007962

A meeting with your adviser isn’t free as you’re paying an ongoing charge for it.

Yorkie1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008730#Comment_82008730

Well yes, I realise that. Hence saying "… without any further charge for it."

dunstonh

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008922#Comment_82008922

It would probably be unlawful (or at least the breach of rules) for them to have a further charge if they are already charging for something they're meant to be providing anyway.