Stakeholder pensions and Cavendish Online website: questions & queries

dunstonh

They are offering a 'Group Pension scheme' and they do not offer to put anything in it. So, does this mean that I would be paying for the fees for myself? If so, then I might as well shop around and get some advice etc. Would the conditions/benefits be the same regardless of being 'Group' or not? #btw: thanks so much for your help.

The commissions on group schemes without employer contributions tend to be equal or even higher than individual stakeholders.

in the sam way we talk about isas - e.g. 1 yr fixes 5.2%, 6% - do people talk in similar ways about pensions?

Thats not ISAs. That is fixed term deposits. Some of which you can hold inside an ISA. An ISA is a tax wrapper, just as a pension is. A container to hold investments. If you put a fixed term deposit in an ISA you can put it in a pension as well.

However, as pensions are generally long term, cash based savings are not really suitable as they do not make enough money over the long term compared to the alternatives.

For example, would Friends Provident be any 'better' than say, Standard Life,

It depends on where you want to invest. One may offer better fund solutions for lower risk clients than the other who may offer better solutions for higher risk clients.

The priority with pensions is the investment. Not the provider, not the type of pension or the charges. If you want to invest a sector allocated portfolio which includes a bit in China, India, emerging markets, global property, natural resources, eastern europe as well as traditional sectors then you need to have a provider that offers those options. If you want automatic fund rebalancing then you need a provider that offer that. Each provider has features and terms that the others may not. Each provider has its own fund range but there will be overlaps with personal pensions (not stakeholder).

Investing in a pension is very similar to investing in an ISA. It is not the same as picking a savings account though. BTW, did you realise that the charges on savings accounts tend to average around 1.2% a year. However, because the charge is implicit (hidden with the rate they pay), you dont see it. With investments, the charge is explicit. So you do see it and its the same regardless of the return.