transferring Copps Component of Personal Pension

mikeyk07

Wonder if anyone can help. I want to transfer the Contracted Out Personal Pension element of a policy I have with Windsor Life, which i no longer pay into.

There is approx. £8.5 k sitting in it and they tell me there are no penalties for transferring.

The fund that it's in is near the bottom of it's sector.

im looking to transfer it to a company with a good track record and, who are not going to charge me too much for doing so.

any advice appreciated !!!!!

Ickle_Steve

I was in exactly the same situation earlier this year. I was told by Windsor Life that there was no charge for transfering out the Contracted Out part of the pension but the part of the pension I had paid into would have a fee to transfer out.
After much looking around I decided to transfer the Contracted Out part to the Legal and General stakeholder pension mainly because of the choice of funds they offer. I also asked them to match a low annual charge I had seen on another pension and they agreed.
L&G's "transfering in" team were very helpfull and did most of the dealing with Windsor Life. There was quite a lot of paperwork to fill in about the Windor Life pension including questions that required phone calls to Windsor Life for answers, the whole process took a few months.
At the very last moment during the transfer I found out that Windsor Life would not transfer just the contacted out portion but the whole pension had to be transfered incuring a transfer fee on the rest of the pension :mad:

Lessons I learnt:
Double check everything Windsor Life tell you.
Ask new pension company if they will match lower charges.

dunstonh

It isnt the pension that is performing badly. It is the pension fund. Nearly all providers have good funds and bad funds. You may have alternative fund options with Windsor.

There may also be guarantees built into the old windsor plan that cannot be matched by modern plans so fund selection should not be your only consideration.

I arrange around 400 personal pension (inc S226, RACs etc) transfers a year and about 1 in 5 get the recommendation to leave them where they are because of things like guarantees and charges. Stakeholeders are not always cheaper than personal pensions.

Many providers will insist on a all or nothing based transfer so Ickle_Steve is correct in giving you those warnings.