Archive for the ‘Transferring Pensions’ Category

Could Transferring Pensions Boost Your Pension Fund?

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Transferring pensions is the process of leaving one pension scheme for another; this might be from personal plan to personal plan, or company scheme to personal plan.

Transferring pensionsThe value that you have invested into your current pension fund is simply transferred to a new scheme. Transferring pensions could provide you with a huge boost, but it can also be a very risky process, making it very important that you obtain professional independent financial advice before deciding on anything.

Transferring pensions only applies to individual or company pension plans, you are unable to transfer a state pension, or from a pension into a bank account.

Why would I consider transferring pensions?

There are a number of reasons that you might want to transfer your pension, but these most popular are that your current provider has extremely high management fees, or poor investment performance, or because you would like to consolidate the multiple pensions you hold from having had many different employers.

How could transferring my pension be beneficial?It has been highlighted by numerous organisations that some UK individual pension plans have outrageously high fees associated with them.

The BBC’s Panorama  dedicated a whole programme to just this topic. Management fees do vary quite drastically between providers and so does investment performance.

The Royal Society of Arts has suggested that a 1.5% management fee, on a pension investment of £1,000 per year for 40 years, could actually reduce the fund from £250,000 to £174,000. That equates to £76,000 of your money being eaten up by the provider.

If you feel that your management charges are particularly high, or even if you are unsure of what constitutes ‘high fees’, contact an independent financial adviser.

?Do I really need to talk to an IFA about transferring pensions?

Yes.

An IFA is regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) which means that they must provide impartial advice, i.e. advice that is unbiased.

By seeking professional advice like this, you can rest assured that you are not being persuaded or tricked into transferring pensions unnecessarily.

Pensionlite can help. Our Free, Independent, No Obligation Pension Reviews are designed to put you in a position of knowledge before you make any decisions.

It will not cost you a single 1p to accept a pension review & recommendation report tailored to you, your circumstances and aspirations.

What have you got to lose?

consider transferring pensionsPensionlite carries the prestigious status of Chartered Financial Planners.Our Chartered status, granted by the Privy Council, is our industries gold standard for financial planners and is currently held by less than 300 firms across the country.

This status brings with it serious obligations to ensure the advice, service and ongoing support we provide for you is of the highest quality, based solely on your researched needs and provided by someone of appropriate competency.

We offer whole of market choice and have no links or ties to any single business or organisation. Our aim is to provide our clients with tailored solutions, created by advisers with particular skills and specialist qualifications.

Our advice process is always to gather a full understand our clients needs, circumstances and aspirations together with detailed analysis of any existing arrangements and make written recommendations before any decisions or actions are taken.

We provide free, independent, no obligation review and recommendation reports covering all aspects of our specialist areas of work.

for more information about Transferring Pensions contact pensionlite on 01952 279379.

 

 

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Pensionlite Can Help With Transferring Pensions

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

There are times when people become dissatisfied with their existing pension scheme. Sometimes because their personal and financial situations change or in many cases because their eye has been caught by press comment about high charges or poor investment returns.

If you are having any doubts about whether you are getting the most from your pension you should seek impartial professional advice from an independent financial adviser firm like Pensionlite, who are regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and possess the expertise to thoroughly review your pension and outline alternative options which may improve your financial security in retirement.

Need help Transferring PensionsIt could be that you ‘think’ your pension is OK, possibly it’s with a major high street name so what could go wrong?

If you would like the peace of mind that your pension is giving good value and you should not worry then you should get Pensionlite, Independent Pension Specialists, to provide you with a free independent and no obligation pension review and recommendation report.

If your pension is good you will be told why, brilliant! If your pension is bad you will be told why and be given recommendations as to how you can take action to improve things.

Transferring or just reviewing pensions is often considered as a daunting task and a complex process, but Pensionlite provide a simple 3 step process that limits the time you get involved, provides specialist tailored advice and can be dealt with by post, telephone and e mail so you do not feel pressured.

It is a fact that many pension plans are expensive, poor performing and do not provide good value for money.

If you have a personal pension, stakeholder, with profits pension, group personal pension, or money purchase pension you are more likely to be in a bad rather than good one.

During the course of a person’s life they can have many different work positions which can result in the accumulation of a number of disparate pension schemes. Transferring pensions into one scheme with low fees is often advantageous for the pension holder, both in terms of money saved and in terms of easier management of the collected pension fund.

Reviewing your pension may seem a big step to take, but remaining with a pension scheme you are unhappy with simply to avoid the time and effort demanded by the procedure is unwise.

Many people in this position merely call their existing pension provider to ask if it’s OK.  As your own pension provider can only talk about their own plans it is not possible for them to give an unbiased independent view so you are bound to come off the phone thinking all is well when in fact it’s far from well. You are more likely to be in a bad fund than a good one.

Contact Pensionlite today to arrange a free / no obligation review and recommendation report. www.pensionlite.co.uk e mail support @pensionlite.co.uk or tel. 01952 2790 379

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Transferring Pensions to another…

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Transferring pensions is where you leave a current pension scheme for another. The value that you have accrued to date in your current pension scheme is transferred to the new scheme. Transferring is not always a good idea.

However, neither, necessarily, is staying put! Point being: while it can often be extremely worthwhile, transferring your pension is a big financial decision, and it is vital to avail yourself of quality advice from an independent financial adviser before you commit to anything.

(NB: Transferring pensions is not an option for state pensions. You can’t transfer over value either from or to a state pension. Also, you can only transfer funds from a pension into another pension [as opposed to a normal bank account, ISA, etc] due to the fact that pensions are tax-free.)

Pension Lite - Pension Transfer

One possible reason for wanting to transfer could be if you feel that your current personal pension charges higher fees than you could be paying. For instance, many of the new type of ‘stakeholder’ pensions boast considerably lower fees, but the other options on the market haven’t necessarily always kept up with this.

Another reason may be if you have had a number of different employments through the course of your working  life, and consequently have several pension schemes on the go. You could simplify matters by dissolving these all into one scheme.

Occasionally, employers will allow you to transfer existing personal pension(s) to an employer pension scheme, which can be beneficial if lower fees are on offer, or if the employer makes a contribution as part of the scheme.

Also, your hand may be forced if you have an occupational pension scheme in place but your employer is winding up the scheme as a whole.

However, if you believe that your employer’s pension scheme investment is not doing well, or even that your company itself is not doing well and may become bankrupt, there might not necessarily be cause to panic and instantly do everything you can to transfer out of your company pension.

In the former case, the investment may recover (after all, investment performance can fluctuate), whereas if you transferred as soon as you became worried, you would be transferring a pension of reduced value. Also, the government put in place in 2005 a measure to safeguard employees’ company pensions in the eventuality that their employers go bust.

If you transfer away from the company as soon as you get the jitters, you would most likely lose this protection. (Although the pension protection scheme may not always be able to guarantee your full company pension.

As ever, individual circumstances vary, and consulting with an independent financial adviser is your best bet.)

Transferring pensions can certainly be extremely worthwhile, and it is advisable to keep an eye on how your pension fund is doing, and on the market in general, to see if transferring might become something to think about. However, in the wrong situation, it can also be a very financially detrimental mistake.

If you are considering transferring pensions, we can discuss this with you, and make recommendations, impartially, no obligations and free of charge.

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