Three Pensions

bigfreddiel

In the 90's my partner (to retire in July - lucky her!) was sold a personal pension plan by Abby Life - no the time has come to decide what to do with this fund it seems she has three pension pots with Abbey Life - 20 odd years ago we didn't really take too mucj notice and since she stopped contribitions in the mid - 90's - joined the NHS scheme we didn't think any more about it.
Question is now, can these be combined into one pension pot?
Does she need to buy an annuity?
Is she free to take this pot elsewere and if so where?
Its too late to add it into her NHS pension - I think that has to be done with in one year of joining the scheme so we missed that boat!

Very basic questions and i almost feel embarrased asking them but any advice will be gratefully received.

cheers

fj

sdooley

Some public sector people who would have been better off buying AVCs were misadvised into buying private pensions. It may be possible to go back and challenge this and if you wish to would be best to do so through the financial services ombudsman or at least referring to the info on their website about this (it's very complicated - maybe someone in the union might help her - it must have come up with colleagues).

If you don't want to go through this hassle, or the Abbey Life pension was completely seperate from the NHS scheme (i.e. she wasn't sold it at the same time or instead of AVCs), then you still have a few options what to do with these pots. Whether it is worth doing something other than going into an annuity (e.g. taking tax free cash and/or paying into a SIPP) will likely depend on the size of the pot as some SIPP arrangements can be expensive for very small pension pots.

If you do go for an annuity, you need to exercise the open market option and buy the best one on the market as that is rarely the default annuity provided by the existing provider (unless you have a guaranteed annuity rate, which is very rare now) .

bigfreddiel

sdooley wrote: »

Some public sector people who would have been better off buying AVCs were misadvised into buying private pensions. It may be possible to go back and challenge this and if you wish to would be best to do so through the financial services ombudsman or at least referring to the info on their website about this (it's very complicated - maybe someone in the union might help her - it must have come up with colleagues).

.

Cheers for that, no these private pensions were taken out begore she joined the NHS, when she did she thought she would not be there more than a few years so we did not think of transferring these various penison into the NHS scheme (wish we had now!).

Anyway, she has a total pot of about £14k and her NHS pension should be about £1,500/annum - so what should she do with this, and where should she go for some independent advice about her Abbey life pot?

cheers

fj

jem16

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Anyway, she has a total pot of about £14k and her NHS pension should be about £1,500/annum - so what should she do with this, and where should she go for some independent advice about her Abbey life pot?

Nothing much to do with the NHS pension other than take it.

As to the Abbey pot see an IFA.

Retired_I.F.A.

bigfreddiel wrote: »

.... so we did not think of transferring these various penison into the NHS scheme (wish we had now!).

Most likely I'd say she did better not transfering them into the NHS scheme. A money purchase scheme such as the personal pensions she has should have produced a bigger pot than the equivelent pot value of buying added years in the NHS scheme as with added years you pay for the whole cost of that added.


Anyways www.unbiased.co.uk is her first place of call now to look into drawdown and annuities.