Stakeholder Pension versus Personal Pension

dunstonh

So far, the closest thing seems to be the Selestia/Skandia PP option, especially if I wait a little while to see about its online functionality.

Give me a week. I will register for the consumer online access for my own pension which I have with Selestia and I will let you know what the content is like. I should have the user/pass through by then. I never bothered looking from the consumer side of it because I tend to use the integration they have with my back office software which in turn integrates with financial express. It will be interesting to see how the consumer side compares and what it has to offer (or not).

EdInvestor

dunstonh wrote: »

Yes. The more options you want, the more expensive it is to run.

That's actually not the case.Some of the cheapest SIPPs have a very wide range of options. But regular investing of very small amounts of money into a multitudinous number of top quality funds maneged by you with full online functionality won't be cheap, including at Skandia/ Selestia, because the provider can't make any money out of it. Basically, you're asking for too much.




,

Murphy_The_Cat

EdInvestor wrote: »

Basically, you're asking for too much.
,

Thats a shame, as I don't think that it is unreasonable to be be able to monitor how your funds are performing ?

cheers dunstonh, I'll be interested to see what you discover with Selestia/Skandia.

Dithering_Dad

Hi Murph, I'm following this with interest as I also have an L&G stakeholder (you kindly sent me a link where I could track the performance) and I'm considering a swtich.

The original attraction to a stakeholder for me was that I could combine all my old company pensions into a single location while I decide what to do with them (there will be no entry/exit charge with the stakeholder). This is now complete.

Also, I work as an I.T. contractor so my income could have gaps when I am between contracts, so I thought a stakeholder would be ideal because I can stop and start the stakeholder without penalty. However, I have now built up quite a bit of cash in my company, so I don't think this is necessary anymore.

I'll therefore be very interested in which option you decided to do, so please keep posting in here!

Murphy_The_Cat

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Hi Murph, I'm following this with interest as I also have an L&G stakeholder (you kindly sent me a link where I could track the performance) and I'm considering a swtich.

The original attraction to a stakeholder for me was that I could combine all my old company pensions into a single location while I decide what to do with them (there will be no entry/exit charge with the stakeholder). This is now complete.

Also, I work as an I.T. contractor so my income could have gaps when I am between contracts, so I thought a stakeholder would be ideal because I can stop and start the stakeholder without penalty. However, I have now built up quite a bit of cash in my company, so I don't think this is necessary anymore.

I'll therefore be very interested in which option you decided to do, so please keep posting in here!

Hello DD

I'm also looking forward to the results of dunstonh's 'investiagation' :beer:.
BTW, please bear in mind that this particular pension is for my children, not for me, so my fund choices may/may not be relevant to you.

EdInvestor

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Thats a shame, as I don't think that it is unreasonable to be be able to monitor how your funds are performing ?

If you just want to be able to log on now and again to a simple website and get a fund valuation,then that's probably available with some of the better insurance company PPs However there's very little investment functionality or information involved there and of course no online customer service.