Pensions and retirement
We find every pension you hold, including the schemes from jobs you left years ago, project what each will produce, and put that next to what your retirement will cost.
We find every pension you hold, including the schemes from jobs you left years ago, project what each will produce, and put that next to what your retirement will cost.
This is part of the health check, which is at no cost to you.
2026/27 rules. Pension tax rules change regularly.
Between minimum pension age and State Pension age, your income comes from your own pensions and savings. Once you have flexibly accessed a pension a much lower annual allowance applies to anything you pay in afterwards, so the order in which you do things matters.
Pension benefits and the tax treatment of them depend on your circumstances and on current rules, which can change. Accessing benefits can have lasting tax and income consequences.
It is not necessarily too late to consider pension saving, although whether it is appropriate depends on your circumstances, objectives and timescale. People often assume retirement costs less, and for many it does not.
Even if you already have a workplace or private pension, an additional arrangement may add usefully to your retirement income. We work that out with you before you pay anything.
In many cases, yes. Between the government's Pension Tracing Service, old payslips and P60s, and direct enquiries to former employers and their schemes, most pensions can be traced. Tracing them is part of the health check.
Transferring a defined benefit pension means giving up valuable guaranteed benefits, and it cannot be undone. A transfer will only be appropriate in some circumstances and requires careful assessment of the benefits being given up, your objectives, financial circumstances and capacity for loss.
Transfers of safeguarded benefits above £30,000 require specialist advice by law. You will see the reasoning behind our recommendation.
There is no figure that works for everybody. Yours depends on what you intend to do with your time, your health, what else you own, and whether you plan to stop completely. We work it out with you at the start.
Most modern pensions are paid at the scheme's discretion, guided by your expression-of-wish form. If that form is missing or out of date the money may not follow your intentions. We check them as a matter of routine and help you put an out-of-date one right.
Yes, within limits, and there is tax relief available even on contributions made with no earned income at all, up to a modest annual amount. Once you have flexibly accessed a pension a much lower annual allowance applies to future contributions, so the order of events matters.
You can trace a lost pension through the Pension Tracing Service, your old paperwork or your former employer. The full answer.
Old schemes can carry guarantees that you give up if you move the money. The full answer.
From 6 April 2027 the money left in your pension when you die counts as part of your estate for inheritance tax. Until then, most pensions sit outside it.
Read more →A limited company can pay into a director's pension and deduct the payment from its profits for corporation tax.
Read more →You can normally take 25% free of tax and the rest is taxed as income.
Read more →Each provider sets its own charges and rules for taking money out, and some pay no income unless the pot moves to another provider.
Read more →The full new State Pension pays about £12,548 a year. Your own pension pays for the spending above that.
Read more →In a divorce a pension is valued and can be divided along with everything else a couple owns.
Read more →A SIPP and a SSAS are both pensions in which you choose the investments. A SIPP is a personal pension, and a SSAS is a scheme a company sets up for its directors and staff.
Read more →GPs and dentists in the NHS Pension Scheme, and partners in solicitors' LLPs, each face their own pension tax rules, and a practice sale has its own capital gains tax rules.
Read more →The law requires regulated advice before you transfer safeguarded pension benefits worth more than £30,000, such as a final salary pension. For a pension with no guarantees, an ISA or an investment, taking advice is your choice.
Read more →Whether your pensions will cover the retirement you want, and by how much they miss.
Work it out →Eight questions on retirement, protection, savings, your mortgage, your estate and your day-to-day money give a first score. The other 17 complete the written report.
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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.