askpaul - EPISODE 6! Tips For Those That Have A Pension

Описание: Hi and welcome to episode six of Ask Paul. Today we're going to have a chat about if you have a pension, what you should do with that pension, how you review it. You should be reviewing your pension with your financial advisor every year. If you haven't seen a financial advisor in an awful long time, I'd recommend getting in touch with one and having a sit down and reviewing your pension. The reason for that is an awful lot can change over a 12 month period. Mainly from an investment point of view but also pensions have changed an awful lot over the last number of years. So there's new contracts all the time, and most of the life companies and pension providers are bringing out new products every year, new charging structures and there's always better value out there in my opinion. It's vary rare to have met a client in the past that we couldn't better the contract of what they had. And like I said, if you're not going to review it every year, you really need to go get that. One thing I'll touch on quickly is if you have an old pension that you haven't reviewed in years from an old occupational pension plan. So, if you left the company five or six years ago, the easiest thing that I can say to you is have a look at moving that pension into your own name, if it's in your best interests to do that. And why would you do that? Well, basically if you're an old company pension plan, the investment strategy over that pension or that money or your money, your pension plan, is decided by the trustees. If you bring it into your own name you can decide what to do with it yourself or how to invest that plan. So always, always, always, please remember to get a review of your pension plan with your financial advisor. If you don't have one, get one and have a real consideration about how you plan is invested, what your retirement age is, what your objectives are around that pension. And the next is charging structures. In relation to charging structures, you really should be getting close to 100% allocation and putting your money into your pension. Charging structures are broke up in a few places. Charging structure for one is allocation and two is any annual management charges and three are policy fees. Policy fees, some come as reduced policy fees or remove policy fees altogether. Annual management charges. These charges are the annual management cost of running your investment style to your pension. These tend to range from .75 to 1.75 per annum, depending on what your risk capital is and dependent on how your money is invested. If you look at the allocation, this means every time you make a pension contribution, is there a couple of percent or a couple of quid being lost on the way in the door for charges? Most companies over the last maybe 10 years, have moved to reduce those charges. So if you have a pension that's close to more than 10 years or more, it's important to review your allocation and try to get your allocation to 100%. That means that every penny you put into the pension actually hits the pension and doesn't go on commissions or fees for life companies. That's one thing to really, really pay close attention to. The next episode we're going to discuss the investment of your pension and how to do that. So please click back in tomorrow and we can take you through that. Thanks.