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NPI/Phoenix Life Offer

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

Comments

  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 18,593 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Hung up my suit!

    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
    dunstonh Posts: 121,628 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker

    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.

    I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.
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