Which Stakeholder Pension provider to choose?

loucyp

Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of setting up a stakeholder pension. Before I choose who to go with i'd like to do some more research, however unlike with for example ISA's where it's easy to see where the best rate is, i'm struggling to find a resource that may be able to tell me who the best pension investors are.

Can anyone suggest a website that may have this information?

Or if anyone can recommend a pension provider they think are doing a good job, then please let me know

Thanks!
Lou

dunstonh

i'm struggling to find a resource that may be able to tell me who the best pension investors are.

Probably as IFAs pay a lot of money and the companies dont want people to access it free of charge as IFAs wouldnt pay for it anymore.

There are tens of thousands of places you can use to invest with your pension. Many of the funds or investments can be used in multiple pensions so performance information is largely unimportant. i.e. If you use invesco perpetual high income fund you will find most of the personal pensions offer this.

Or if anyone can recommend a pension provider they think are doing a good job, then please let me know

It doesnt work that way. Think of the pension as a container. Inside that container you place your investments. Depending on how you want to invest, what risk and investment strategy you intend to you use the company that comes out best will be different to different people.




Actual research information isnt (oops. for some reason rest of post was lost after this point and I cannot remember the rest)

loucyp

I do understand what you are saying, but in the same way that you can check on how well an ISA fund is managed, surely the same is true of a pension fund?

Eg You may say to me, Scottish Widows is a well managed pension fund. Or someone else may say that Clerical Medical won an award last year for their fund and have an AA+ rating.

They can't all be exactly the same?

Phlik

loucyp wrote: »

I do understand what you are saying, but in the same way that you can check on how well an ISA fund is managed, surely the same is true of a pension fund?

You can check the performance of the funds you hold within your pension by using sites like trustnet or citywire. But remember you're monitoring the fund itself, not the ISA or the pension, as Dunstonh said, these are just wrappers.

Eg You may say to me, Scottish Widows is a well managed pension fund. Or someone else may say that Clerical Medical won an award last year for their fund and have an AA+ rating.

They can't all be exactly the same?

Its largely irrelevant who the pension provider is, what is important (to me anyway) is the range of internal and external funds you have access to and the number of funds you can invest in within your chosen scheme.

Phlik

EdInvestor

The reason why there is no website rating the performance of pensions and ISAs is because they are just the tax wrapper around the investments.

Here is a website which rates the investments themselves:

https://www.citywire.co.uk/Funds/Home.aspx

So first you should choose the funds you want and then the wrapper to go around them.If you can't be bothered checking all the pension companies to see if they offer the funds you want, then an easy way is to open a SIPP through a discount broker such as https://www.h-l.co.uk

SIPPs like these usually offer most of the fund options (far more than most pensions) plus shares and investment trusts as well. If you choose a cheap one you won't pay any more than an ordinary pension, and you'll get better service, plus you can manage the pension online.It's also a much better arrangment when you want to start taking pension income - there is no need to transfer.

loucyp

Citywire was what I was looking for. Ranks all the managed pension funds.

Thanks for your help!

Best
Lou

dunstonh

I do understand what you are saying, but in the same way that you can check on how well an ISA fund is managed, surely the same is true of a pension fund?

Eg You may say to me, Scottish Widows is a well managed pension fund. Or someone else may say that Clerical Medical won an award last year for their fund and have an AA+ rating.

They can't all be exactly the same?

Scottish Widows have around 150 funds. Some will be absolute rubbish. Some may be good.

Citywire was what I was looking for. Ranks all the managed pension funds.

Never ever buy pension funds on rankings. The are often out of date and funds can take ages to get a ranking and you miss out on those with potential. Many funds have top ratings despite the fund manager having changed recently meaning everything that went before should be ignored.

You need to be looking at the asset allocation, risk profile, consistency under that manager, if returns are because the asset allocation has suited a particular area and whether that was luck, judgement or within the nature of the fund.

EdInvestor

Citywire ranks both the fund and the fund manager, and you need to look at both, in particular to make sure the guy is still there.