After a few moves career wise I find myself with a few different pensions of undetermined values. I need to work out what best to do with these so figure an IFA will be the best way to go. Has anyone gone down this path before and if so would you share your experiences? Also, coudl anyone make any recommendations in the Warrington area?

Thanks in advance.

After a few moves career wise I find myself with a few different pensions of undetermined values.

If you want to know the values of your various workplace pensions, contact the various pensions administrators. An IFA can’t really help with this bit. Once you know what you’ve got already, they can help with what to do next.

The advice is pretty standard stuff; generally, definitely leave any defined benefit (‘final salary’) schemes where they are, consider consolidating defined contribution (‘money purchase’) into one, although you may find that the management fees you pay in the occupational scheme are lower than you’d pay of you transferred them into a personal pension, so it’s not worth it.

There are many pensions calculators available on the web to give you an idea of how much you need to save to give you the pension you want (the answer normally being much more than you want to save). There are many pension providers that you can deal with directly rather than going through an IFA and most of them will help you gauge your attitude to risk and suggest an appropriate investment strategy.

I suppose what I’m saying is that, in general (IMHO), IFA’s are used car salesmen in better suits, and unless your financial position is particularly complicated they’re not necessary. I say this from 20 years experience in Life and Pensions industry…

onsider consolidating defined contribution (‘money purchase’) into one

Why? I’ve got 4 or 5 little funds and was going to do this but couldn’t speak to anyone at any of the providers who could give me a clear idea on how to do it (ie they couldn’t give me a clear answer on whether the process was driven by the sender or the receiver of the funds). After a few hours of phone calls I gave up.

I took some more advice and as far as I can work out the only benefit is admin from my side – fewer addresses to change when I next move –
– the charges are all a straight percentage and there’s nothing between them (so no costs to save).
– if you keep them separate you can take them as lump sums at different times after retirement.

See here: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/financial-adviser-recommendations-manchester

Similar thread a while back and I went with Simon Kearsley and would recommend him. No obligation review of my circumstance, expectations for retirement, various pensions, what they were worth, fees I was paying, how they were performing then a recommendation of what to do with them.

Seemed very honest (e.g. leave some alone as the mgt fee is ridiculously low), and ended up consolidating a few pensions into a single, more actively managed fund. Yes I will pay a slightly higher fee, but the improvement in fund performance should more than offset this (some of my current funds have a decent mgt fee anyway but aren’t actively managed and haven’t performed very well over the last 5+ years).

He’s Cheshire / Wirral I think, but traveled over to Manchester to meet me at home.

Transferring pensions into a SIPP is very easy, I’ve consolidated most of mine, only had to fill in one form per pension and post it off…

Good stuff dashed.

Glad Simon worked out well for you – I really rated him last time I did business with him.

I suppose what I’m saying is that, in general (IMHO), IFA’s are used car salesmen in better suits, and unless your financial position is particularly complicated they’re not necessary. I say this from 20 years experience in Life and Pensions industry…

That’s an interesting standpoint. My financial situation is rather straightforward (all my pension was with Standard Life). However, I picked my funds 8 years ago, and then never had the time or inclination to review them thereafter. In the end, through sheer luck it seems I’ve done rather well out of my initial choices, with a return of over 9% in the last couple of years. But I decided my lack of strategy and oversight was a potential pitfall that could backfire, so just last month engaged the services of an IFA to do a better job than me. Standard Life were charging me on average 1.3% in management fees for my funds, and with my new IFA he is coincidentally also charging me 1.3% (made up of his fee, plus the fund fee). So for me it seems like win-win.

I can recommend my good lady wife (also a biker) as a Chartered IFA with this stuff as she deals with pensions all the time. May be a bit biased but she is heavily qualified and has won awards too. She is based in Preston but travels all over, works for Springfield Financial Services who won NW advisor firm of 2016 in the professional advisor awards. You can find her on [/url]

Standard Life were charging me on average 1.3% in management fees for my funds, and with my new IFA he is coincidentally also charging me 1.3% (made up of his fee, plus the fund fee).

Is your pension still with Standard Life? If so, you’ll still be paying their management fee, as well as whatever fee your IFA is charging. Worth double checking, I’d be surprised if you had an IFA managing your pension for the same overall cost as when you were managing it yourself.

I kind of get the point of having someone to manage your fund choices and move them around when they see fit but, FWIW, a passive market index tracker fund, which will have incredibly cheap management fees, will generally perform as well as a managed fund, which will have more expensive fees, over the long term. Plus, add in the compound effect of the higher fees over time and the passive fund will often outperform the managed one.

Is your pension still with Standard Life? If so, you’ll still be paying their management fee, as well as whatever fee your IFA is charging. Worth double checking, I’d be surprised if you had an IFA managing your pension for the same overall cost as when you were managing it yourself.

I’m no longer with Standard Life. The IFA moved me to Transact which have much lower fees, but can still access whole of market (inc. Standard Life funds). I think I now pay ~0.3% to my IFA and 1% to Transact (or visa versa).

I’m sure it’s possible to drill down on the fees if I went solo and found a tracker fund like you suggest. But I think there’s a better chance of my IFA not messing up my pension. Plus my IFA can advise on all sorts of other financial matters, not just pensions, which are included in the fee.

I’m no longer with Standard Life. The IFA moved me to Transact which have much lower fees, but can still access whole of market (inc. Standard Life funds). I think I now pay ~0.3% to my IFA and 1% to Transact (or visa versa).

Right, gotcha, that would make sense.

I’m sure it’s possible to drill down on the fees if I went solo and found a tracker fund like you suggest. But I think there’s a better chance of my IFA not messing up my pension. Plus my IFA can advise on all sorts of other financial matters, not just pensions, which are included in the fee.

Given what you seem to be paying, I’d probably agree as it’s a pretty good deal (but I’d keep an eye on the charges, they do seem a bit towards the ‘mildly suspiciously good value’ end of the spectrum). And I’d also not treat it as a ‘fire and forget’ option, as you still need to keep an eye on the performance and not rely on the IFA to. Again, I know this from bitter experience…

IFA’s, whether they call it ‘advice fee’ or not, are paid on commission. It is a sales job. Like any similar sales job where ‘professional judgement’ is being sold (estate agent, recruitment agent) there are some good ones who look to give good advice and service, but many more who are simply out to maximise profit (and the bigger money comes from signing new business/clients, rather than the servicing of existing ones).

Given what you seem to be paying, I’d probably agree as it’s a pretty good deal (but I’d keep an eye on the charges, they do seem a bit towards the ‘mildly suspiciously good value’ end of the spectrum). And I’d also not treat it as a ‘fire and forget’ option, as you still need to keep an eye on the performance and not rely on the IFA to. Again, I know this from bitter experience…

Thanks for the advice. I was kinda treating it as fire and forget, but will be a bit more wary now. I get an annual review, so I suppose I will be obliged to take an interest in what he’s doing with my money. As it goes, the company came recommended by my accountant so I’m reasonably confident they aren’t a bunch of cowboys.

Hi, thanks for the advice, STW rarely fails to deliver. I’ll give Simon a shout and also Mrs. StackEd.

Cheers.

Mrs StackEd is called Vanessa if and when you contact Springfield.

Cheers
Ed

Given what you seem to be paying, I’d probably agree as it’s a pretty good deal (but I’d keep an eye on the charges, they do seem a bit towards the ‘mildly suspiciously good value’ end of the spectrum). And I’d also not treat it as a ‘fire and forget’ option, as you still need to keep an eye on the performance and not rely on the IFA to. Again, I know this from bitter experience…

It turns out you were right to be suspicious. There was a hidden 0.6% fee that wasn’t explained to me clearly. I only found out AFTER my pension had been transferred out of Standard Life! Back to the drawing board…

Hate to say told you so…

Just had a look at Hargreaves Lansdown, you could have a SIPP with them, with everything in a Vanguard FTSE All Share tracker, for 0.53%, all in.

Google John Bogle, the inventor of the tracker (‘index’) fund. Interesting stuff.

Just had a look at Hargreaves Lansdown, you could have a SIPP with them, with everything in a Vanguard FTSE All Share tracker, for 0.53%, all in.

Although you’d be daft to put it all in a FTSE tracker. Spread the risk amongst other funds, US, Japan, India, Europe, Healthcare, etc, etc.

Just had a look at Hargreaves Lansdown, you could have a SIPP with them, with everything in a Vanguard FTSE All Share tracker, for 0.53%, all in.

Although you’d be daft to put it all in a FTSE tracker. Spread the risk amongst other funds, US, Japan, India, Europe, Healthcare, etc, etc.

And that’s the root of my problem. I don’t have the time to work out these things. I would have rather paid the extra 0.8% and let the IFA do it. Sadly, as it turns out, it wasn’t an extra 0.8% but rather 1.4%.

Although you’d be daft to put it all in a FTSE tracker

Some would disagree, like I said:

Google John Bogle, the inventor of the tracker (‘index’) fund. Interesting stuff.

To be fair, sticking it all in one tracker is an extreme example. There’s nothing to stop you using a mix of tracker funds (DOW, Hang Seng etc) to spread the risk though.

The perception that managed funds are ‘better’ than trackers is based on the premise that one person (the fund manager, or the IFA selecting the fund, or the individual investor pickig the fund) knows better than everyone else (i.e. the market). This is rarely true, especially over the long term.