Civil Service Pension - converting from Private

cezzer76

Hello,

I've recently landed a job with the civil service and have to re-think my pension. I have a been putting money into a private stakeholder pension for about 5 years, I am nearly 29.

I was wondering whether it would be a good to idea buy added years in the premium pension. Bearing in mind that I will be earning less in the Civil service so I will be putting less away in the future. The pensions guy send I should leave the money where it is, but I can't help thinking he has a vested interest in me doing so...

Cezzer :rolleyes:

dunstonh

I was wondering whether it would be a good to idea buy added years in the premium pension.

Yes and No. Depends on your retirement aims.

The pensions guy send I should leave the money where it is, but I can't help thinking he has a vested interest in me doing so...

Why do you think that?

If you transfer the pension into the occupational scheme, you may or may not get a decent number of years for the value of the pension. Once the pension has bought added years, you are tied to the retirement age of the occupational scheme. What happens if you want to retire earlier and the scheme trustees dont allow it?

The average age of retirement in the UK (for men) is 63. If the scheme age is 65 now (could be made higher later), then you may have to wait until the scheme age to get benefits. Having a personal savings arrangement (of any sort) which gives you options is not a bad thing.

However, without knowing how many years you would get for the value of the pension and what your personal circumstances are, no-one can tell for sure.