Pension Review

Disappointed with your existing pension?

Unsure of your charges and feel they may be high?

Have several plans and are looking to just have the one pension?

Have moved employer and left a pension behind?

Want a free pension review to see what you can do?

Making the most of your Pensions

Pension Review - Most people, throughout their working lives, collect a number of different pension plans which are then parked in a drawer somewhere and forgotten about until they mature.

The result? Your pension may not be worth as much as it could be... a pension review can consolidate all your pensions into one pension to improve your retirement.

To get the best out of your pension:

Continually assess your investments and contributions and

Have a full understanding of the income levels you will receive at retirement

That’s the least you need to be doing. To do it really well, to enable you to keep completely on top of your pension plans - we’ve devised the Pension Review Service.

To start your FREE pension review call 0845 519 6093 or click the link..

Pensions can offer a simple, straightforward, tax-efficient route to plan for your retirement - they can also be extremely complex.

To be able to make informed decisions on what is right for you; complexity doesn’t work too well, clarity is much better.

We offer clear, unambiguous, informed advice on:

Personal Pensions including Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP)

Executive Pension Plans (EPP) and Small Self Administered Schemes (SSAS)

Occupational and Group Pensions

Pension Transfers

No Obligation Process

At pension reviewer we believe that everyone should have access to specialist pension advice without concerns about cost. Consequently, all of our clients have the opportunity to receive an independent, no obligation, free pension review and recommendation report.

Many first time visitors to our web site question the fact that this opportunity is genuinely free and we would like to take a few minutes of your time confirming this.

Financial Services advice is based on a client’s circumstances which become known to an adviser through some form of Fact Finding exercise. Equally, a client gets to know about the adviser through things like a business card and a client agreement which details the services provided, any costs and the manner of charges. You can of course also check the Financial Services Register to reassure yourself further. www.fsa.gov.uk

It is quite clear that the choices available to clients for advice and services are either paying for them in the form of a fee or by allowing that firm to receive a commission from a product or service provider should a transaction occur.

Choosing the commission option means no transaction - no commission - no charge. Under normal circumstances you have to make this decision before any IFA can act on your behalf. You do of course have the right to change your mind at a later stage but if your initial choice is to pay by fee then you pay up front. If you choose the commission option there is no charge for the advice and recommendations.

At pension reviewer we will give you the options at the outset. If you would like to pay a fee you can, although we cannot see why you would want to do so at this stage. Once we have completed a pension review and made recommendations you will once again have the same choices. If the advice and recommendations made are that your pension should stay where it is then there is no charge. If the advice and recommendations are to move your funds and you do not take the advice there is no charge. If the advice and recommendations are to move your funds and you accept the advice you will be once again given the choice of payment options. You can pay a fee or allow us to receive a commission from the new provider.

About The Review and the Process

pension reviewers pension reviews are carried out by specially qualified pension advisers. They will obtain all of the available information about your existing pension arrangements, including details of the charges and investment performance. This information along with any special scheme benefits, rules and conditions will be compared to what is currently available within today’s independent pension market place. Taking into account the scheme information and your personal views, concerns, attitudes and aspirations a tailored review and recommendation report will be produced and posted to you.

If the recommendations are to stay with your existing scheme and or make certain changes to what you already have then you will be told how and why. If the recommendations are to move your scheme you will be told why and where the adviser believes you should move it to. This advice will include not only why a particular provider has been selected but also what specific funds you should invest in to match your risk profile, age and planned retirement date. If you have several schemes each one will be reviewed separately and any recommendations will cover each individual policy.

Once you have received your Free, Independent, No Obligation pension review and Recommendation are aware of what the likely implications are of following or not following the recommendations.

You are under NO OBLIGATION to follow the advice or recommendations.

In future years, with your permission, your pension policies and any new contributions will be reviewed and re-assessed to ensure they continue to perform efficiently and in line with you and your circumstances. Life moves on, things change and your pension must move with you.

This service will be of particular interest if any of the following apply to your scheme or schemes

A Personal Pension

A frozen Personal Pension

A With Profits Personal Pension

A Personal Pension with a company that may be overpriced

A Personal Pension where the provider no longer sells new pensions

A Company Pension with an employer who has ceased trading

A Company Pension which is being closed or changed

Been or getting divorced

The pension review service is generally not available where the total value of all of your pensions is under £15,000 or there is less than 10 years to retirement, as it is unlikely that the benefits of transferring would be worthwhile. If in doubt please ask.

Personal Pensions - The Truth Of Why You Need To Act Now

Pension charging structures have changed dramatically over recent years. Due to the introduction of stakeholder pensions the charges applied to new Stakeholder benchmarked plans are far lower than in the past. Many individuals now find themselves with outdated, overpriced pension contracts. It may be possible to transfer to a cheaper plan with the same provider.

Investment returns on many pension plans have fallen well short of what has been achieved in the open market.

With Profits personal pensions have generally performed even worse than the poor 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. With Profit Pension Plans need reviewing immediately.

Companies that may not have changed the charging structure of old style personal pensions are:

Abbey Life, Allied Dunbar, AMP, Britannic, Canada Life, CIS, Eagle Star, GE Life, General Portfolio, HSBC , Laurentian, Liverpool Victoria, MGM, Nationwide, National Mutual, Pearl Assurance, Royal Liver, Royal London, Scottish Life, Skandia, Swiss Life, Winterthur.

Still get in contact if you pension company is not on the above list, we may still be in a possition to help.

With Profits Pensions - The Truth Of Why You Need To Act Now

With Profit funds, which were once a popular and seemingly secure way of investing into Pensions, have been in decline for some time as insurers continue to cut maturity payouts. Whilst these funds continue to raise concerns with our Regulator, the Financial Services Authority, and investors alike the first rule is not to act in haste. One needs to check if there are any guarantees, maturity bonuses and periods when funds can be accessed or transferred without penalty. A review of these funds is a must.

Final Salary Guarantees

It is important to understand that Company Final Salary Pension Scheme benefits are not "guaranteed". It is effectively a promise from the sponsoring employer to contribute enough money into the pension scheme now and in the future to provide the pension calculated at retirement. One of the more recent Final Salary disasters involved the ASW Pension Scheme. One member of the scheme interviewed on television explained how he had contributed to the scheme for nearly 30 years only to find that besides being made redundant the pension he had realistically expected at retirement was nothing like what he was going to receive. This case unfortunately highlights how an employer could underfund your pension without breaking the law. It is important to note that this is relatively unusual; most companies would choose to wind up their pension scheme before it reached this stage.

The good news now is that members of Final Salary pension schemes do have added protection as a result of the establishment of The Pension Protection Fund.

In brief, the Pension Protection Fund’s main function is to provide compensation to members of eligible defined benefit pension schemes, when there is a qualifying insolvency event in relation to the employer, and where there are insufficient assets in the pension scheme to cover the Pension Protection Fund level of compensation.

The Pension Protection Fund is a statutory fund run by the Board of the Pension Protection Fund, a statutory corporation established under the provisions of the Pensions Act 2004.

To help fund the Pension Protection Fund, compulsory annual levies are charged on all eligible schemes.

Investing the assets of the Pension Protection Fund effectively is a further key function of the organisation.

The Pension Protection Fund is also responsible for the Fraud Compensation Fund - a fund that will provide compensation to occupational pension schemes that suffer a loss that can be attributable to dishonesty.

Final Salary Pension Scheme Wind Up

One of the current trends is for companies to close their final salary pension schemes and change to money purchase schemes. There are a number of reasons why some companies have decided to change. For example:

In 1997 the government introduced 10% tax on dividends earned by pension schemes. These dividends are an important element of the schemes' long-term health and this taxation has caused huge disruption.

A new accounting practice, FRS17, which has not yet been introduced but is likely to be introduced in due course, has caused concern amongst company accountants as it requires employers to be more transparent about the pension schemes liabilities.

During the last few decades, the age people are expected to live has drastically increased. Pensions schemes will therefore have to pay pensions for a longer period of time.

Companies no longer want the liability of operating a final salary pension scheme. Ongoing costs include running the schemes administration, paying employer contributions and absorbing the pension funds "ups and downs" on the stock market.

If a company changes its scheme to a money purchase arrangement the majority of the issues highlighted above are removed. This ultimately saves the employer a lot of money.

I would like a FREE pension review please

Excellent! You can contact one of the pension review teams in on of two ways either call our pension review helpline on 0845 519 6093 and ask for a “free pension review” or you can alternatively complete our online pension review form and one of the pension review team will call you back to discuss your pension review.

Our experienced advisors will talk you through your pension review step by step to establish the relevant information they need to process your pension review, the telephone call should only take 10 minutes and then they will go away to review your pension.