wife's Pension what to do

gally56

Hi everyone my wife has been approached by her employer to see if she would like to talk to their Bank of Scotland Pension Advisor joining the Company Stake Holder Pension Scheme. The Company will match her contributions up to 4% of her wage which at present is about £20612 per year. Now she has never had any pension scheme runnning her working life she is now 45 (Foolish I know!!!) and she knows that to get a half decnet pension she would have to make a hefty contribution out of her wage so is there any advice for her on what questions to ask the pension advisor or tips on how to get a half decent retirement fund from other sources e.g avcs also she wants to know would having a works pension affect her basic state pernsion Many Thanks

Retired_I.F.A.

She should ask as many questions as she can think of but not contribute any more than that matched by the employer. Further contributions should be directed towards a pension plan via an IFA who can with access to the whole market place unlike BOS give a far better deal.

AVC's are only for folks in a defined benefit scheme thus irrelevent here.

Ian_W

A works pension doesn't affect the basic state pension, that's paid in full provided she's made 30yrs NI contributions and it isn't means tested. Even better as she hasn't been contracted out she may also have a fair amount of STATE SECOND PENSION, SERPS as was.
There is an online FORECASTER but due to major changes in legislation it won't be available until the end of the year for those retiring after 2010.

As for the works pension - she'd be daft not to sign up. Her 4% is subject to tax relief so for a little over 3% she'll get a total 8% contribution most from her firm and the government.
Whether she should put more into this or other pension depends on her likely total pension income. She may be better using S&S ISA's if her income is likely to be above £10K pa [current levels] on retirement as income from the pension is taxable whereas income from an ISA isn't. THIS THREAD has more.

What to ask the IFA? Where to sign? What the investment options are?