AVC Contributitions - which prudential funds

mrvolleyball

Hi

I'm going to start making some AVCs to my occupational "local government" pension with Prudential, however I'm not sure which of their many funds I should be putting my money into. I'm 27 at the minute so its going to be a long term investment.
I had thought about splitting my money between their relatively new "long term growth" fund, and maybe a tracker fund aswell as something else.
As it is for the long term and not my "main" pension (AVC are invested seperately and paid out seperately - if I read their literature correct) I'm happy enough taking some risks.

Any thoughts / ideas / strategies ?

Thanks for any advice.

Pal

Does your local Gov scheme offer added years AVCs instead? You might be better off looking into that rather than paying money purchase AVCs to Prudential.

dunstonh

There is a pecking order (generally) and added years is preferable. Stakeholder pension is next unless the AVCs happen to offer really good terms. AVCs have tie ins which may be inconvenient at retirement. I have had a couple of clients who retired this year wishing they had never touched the in house avc. I managed to get one sorted after a bit of pleading with the trustees and having it agreed at the trustees meeting as a special case but the other has had to put off retiring when they wanted to as the trustees wouldnt budge. It wouldnt have been the case had a stakeholder/FSAVC/ISA been used in place.

whiteflag_3

mrvolleyball wrote:

Hi

I'm going to start making some AVCs to my occupational "local government" pension with Prudential, however I'm not sure which of their many funds I should be putting my money into. I'm 27 at the minute so its going to be a long term investment.
I had thought about splitting my money between their relatively new "long term growth" fund, and maybe a tracker fund aswell as something else.
As it is for the long term and not my "main" pension (AVC are invested seperately and paid out seperately - if I read their literature correct) I'm happy enough taking some risks.

Any thoughts / ideas / strategies ?

Thanks for any advice.

Have you considered waiting until April 2006 ( when new pension rules take effect) and seeing what might be available as an alternative- There may be more flexible than the in house AVC (and maybe even cheaper!).


You could put the cash into a mini cash ISA in the meantime