NPI/Phoenix Life Offer

FromFrancetoUK

I have an old Pension originally taken out with NPI - With Profits Plan, that is now managed by Phoenix Life. Recently, I received a pre-announcement of an offer they were making to allow me to transfer out of the current fund with no MVR. Since the the MVR would currently be about half the value, this seems a good offer.

Being a bit suspicious, my question is, why would they do this? Financial companies are known for making nice gestures.

On a perhaps related note, my policy is made up of "initial units" (basically ones bought in the first year) and "accumulation units". I have some vague memory of some conditions which say that the initial units would be converted to (the more valuable) accumulation units at retirement age, but stupidly, I have lost the original paperwork in one of my many moves. I took the policy out in 1992.

Any assistance on either issue would be warmly welcomed.

Thank you

Linton

Phoenix specialise in managing obsolete pensions that are no longer being marketted by the original provider. They may want to encourage members to transfer out if the number of remaining customers of a particular scheme does not justify the admin effort in continuing to manage it.

dunstonh

Being a bit suspicious, my question is, why would they do this? Financial companies are known for making nice gestures.

Phoenix got hold of Pearl and its associated companies at a very low cost after AMP as it stripped it and made it virtually insolvent.

Some of the old NPI plans have proven difficult to migrate to modern software. They really don't want to be running that old software still because it comes at a cost. In some cases, the number of people with certain versions of plans will be in the hundreds now. Rather than spend millions of pounds and still not get the software sorted, they can spend a lot less by encouraging people to move those small numbers of policies onto new plans, some of which may end up on standard life plans. Others may go elsewhere.

They are not alone in doing this.

Albermarle

Since the the MVR would currently be about half the value, this seems a good offer.

MVRs are usually applied after big drops in the markets, not after years of good results. So normally today you would not expect a MVR to be actually a factor ?

DRS1

I am wondering if what they call the MVR is the reduction which is applied to the initial units bought in the first year of the pension? The sort of exit charge.

OP do you have annual benefit statements for the pension which may set out what units you currently have and whether those units have two values ascribed to them indicating the reduction. The statement may also say something about MVR generally - maybe that is where you got the 50% figure from? I have to say that when I checked MVR figures on my with profits pensions in 2024 and 2025 there weren't any. 50% is a whopping reduction.

Finally do check if the pension has a guaranteed annuity rate as part of it. I believe Equitable Life got into trouble because it tired to fudge the value of its pensions depending on whether the pension had a GAR or not.

green.lander_2

I also took out a NPI policy around 1990 but a few years back I seem to remember they made me this offer to transfer out without MVR and then immediately withdrew it. The amount of correspondence from them must cost a small fortune ,The policy did have a small protected rights amount i assumed it was because they did not want the liability. In the end i wanted until i was 65 to transfer out to a modern plan.

SouthCoastBoy

I've got one of these policies, the mvr is over 50% of the current value, there is also a 1% exit fee. I have zero initial units. The offer is waiver of mvr and exit fee.

II'm planning on staying with the policy until I reach 65, there is a 4% guaranteed growth, which is guaranteed up to 75. My understanding is I have no exit fees or MVR after 65

LHW99

My understanding is I have no exit fees or MVR after 65

Check that it's not just "at 65", rather than (anytime) after