Do I need financial advice to transfer my pension?
We check each old pension for guarantees, charges and safeguarded benefits before anything moves.
We check each old pension for guarantees, charges and safeguarded benefits before anything moves.
You need regulated advice by law to transfer safeguarded benefits worth more than £30,000, which covers final salary and other defined benefit pensions. A pension with no safeguarded benefits can be moved without advice, and it can still carry guarantees a transfer would give up.
The advisers for this subject: Sunny Bharj and Tony Springer
A transfer swaps a guaranteed income for a pot whose risks you then carry. Should I transfer my final salary pension? covers the circumstances in which one can be appropriate.
Receiving providers set their own limits too. Aviva will not accept a transfer into its SIPP of a pension with safeguarded benefits or a guaranteed annuity rate.
Old workplace schemes and personal pensions, with the provider and plan number for each. The Pension Tracing Service finds a scheme whose details you have lost.
The transfer value, the charges, any exit charge, and whether the plan holds a guarantee or safeguarded benefits.
Transfers can only go to a registered UK scheme or a qualifying overseas scheme. Nest, for one, may ask you to attend a MoneyHelper scams-awareness appointment first.
The receiving provider asks the old one for the money. Cashing a pension in and paying it in elsewhere is a withdrawal, taxed as income above the tax-free part.
A deferred pension keeps its guarantees after you leave the job. Ask the scheme what it will pay you before you look at the transfer value.
Read the answer →A fee or a percentage of the amount invested or transferred. Ask for the charge in pounds before you proceed.
Read the answer →You can, and 25% normally comes out free of tax. Taking taxable income cuts what you can pay back in to £10,000 a year.
Read the answer →Transferring a pension with a guaranteed annuity rate gives the guarantee up.
The law does not require it where the pension holds no safeguarded benefits. Check the old plan for a guaranteed annuity rate, protected tax-free cash or an exit charge before you move it, because a transfer loses the first two and can trigger the third.
Most unfunded public sector schemes, such as the NHS, teachers, civil service and armed forces schemes, cannot be transferred out to a defined contribution arrangement at all. The funded ones, such as the Local Government Pension Scheme, can be, and the same caution applies.
The legal requirement for advice applies above £30,000. Below it the scheme can process a transfer without evidence of advice, and the guaranteed income you would give up is the same.
You do, and you see the figure first. For some pension advice our charge may be calculated as a percentage of the amount invested or transferred. We will show you the actual charge in pounds before you proceed. How much does pension advice cost?
Bring a recent statement for each pension to the first conversation.
Independent Financial Adviser
Independent Financial Adviser
Your first call is with an Account Manager and is at no cost to you. Tell us what is on your mind: a pension you have lost track of, a fixed rate ending, a will you keep meaning to write.