Why Review Now?

Uncompetitive plan and investment charges stifle growth. This could mean less of your pension savings being invested each year and ultimately a much lower income in retirement

We’ll check your plan charges and tell you whether they are competitive. You can stop these unnecessary charges by considering a transfer of your pension savings to another provider.

Do you really know how well or how badly your pension fund is performing?

Investment returns on many pension plans have continued to fall short of what can be achieved in the open market. A recent Money Management review of personal pensions over the last 5 years showed the best average growth per year for 5 years, before charges, was 37%. During the same period the worst performer had averaged a miserly minus 6%. Yes - minus 6% per year. In numerical terms that means that if you had a fund worth £10,000, 5 years ago, at best and before charges it could be worth over £48,000 or as little as £7,500

Multiple pension plans usually means multiple sets of charges. Why put the growth of different pension arrangements at risk simply because we all tend to change jobs more frequently these days.

Job changes can leave you with fragmented pension savings which may not be reviewed regularly and could be in the hands of providers who apply high charges and/or have badly performing investment funds. You can consolidate all of your pension savings into one pension fund portfolio, whilst at the same time lower charges and benefiting from top performing investment funds.

With Profits pension funds have generally performed even worse than the poorest performing unit linked ones, with little or no bonuses being added in recent years.

Many of these funds have already ‘spent’ all or most of their reserves subsidising bonus rates declared to investors over the last few years when falling equity markets have resulted in negative returns to the fund itself.- If you hold pension savings in With Profits funds we recommend you seek qualified advice without delay.

In 1988 the Government introduced measures to encourage individuals to "contract out" of SERPS [State Earnings Related Pension Scheme].SERPS was subsequently replaced by the State Second Pension[SP2].Many people now find themselves confused and uncertain about the future of these accumulated pension savings and would benefit from expert advice.

Major changes in pensions legislation will redefine the way we all save for our retirement. With these changes just around the corner it makes sound financial sense to ensure you have access to experts committed to helping you make the most of your pension savings.

A crucial element of making the most of your pension savings is to keep things under regular review. Failure to take control can result in your savings falling victim to poor investment performance and uncompetitive plan charges which will directly impact upon the level of income available to you at retirement.

With financial systems in chaos around the world it is crucial that your pension savings are entrusted to providers with the financial strength to survive this turmoil and then be in a position to take advantage of recovery conditions.

Nobody can guarantee the financial strength of any plan provider. However, we do use financial data services produced by one of the world’s most respected auditors of financial strength – AKG to help minimise risk.

Few people realise precisely what tends to happen when the fund[s] they are invested in become designated as "Closed" funds. This means these funds are no longer open to new investors. Typically, closed funds cease to be well managed because they no longer need to attract new money and as a consequence investment returns fall and rarely recover. Industry research estimates that over £191bn are invested in "closed" funds.