Wayne Austin IFA Ltd, your Independent Personal Pension Transfer experts

Transferring your personal pension has never been easier and increasing numbers of individuals are switching the funds from their current plans to more flexible, cost efficient arrangements.

More and more people are transferring pension rights

Historically people have not considered transferring their pensions thinking of them frozen and inaccessible, this has mainly been due to a lack of understanding. However, as more people have started to transfer their mortgages, saving accounts, credit cards and loans they have started to look for specialist pension’s advice to move their accrued pensions.

Many people have been sold pensions in the past which they continue to pay in to. They presume that their pensions are performing well and also therefore presume that the funds accumulating within their pension arrangements will provide an adequate standard of living for them in retirement. However a pension is simply a ‘wrapper’ for your retirement funds. It is the funds and investments held within the pension and the way that these are managed that will go a long way to determining your standard of living in retirement.

Out with the old!

Pensions that were taken out a long time ago, especially through banks, building societies and insurance companies often provide poor value in comparison to many of the new pension products that have been introduced on to the market in recent years. Modern pension products are generally much more flexible than their outdated counterparts in terms of having no transfer penalties, having a much wider choice of investment funds to choose from, incorporating lower charging structures, providing much more efficient administration and being able to manage the plan on line.

Call Wayne Austin IFA now on 0845 634 4420 or email us on info@wayneaustinifa.com

Relax, you’ll be in safe hands with Wayne Austin IFA Ltd

Analysing your existing pensions and transferring them if necessary is a very simplistic, painless 3 stage exercise. The process is as follows:

1) You provide your IFA with the details and authorities to your existing pension plans.

2) Your IFA will carry out an analysis of your existing arrangements to see if it would be beneficial for you to retain the benefits in your existing plan or transfer the benefits to an alternative arrangement.

3) If a transfer would be beneficial then your IFA will undertake all the paperwork on your behalf.

This should be a seamless process from start to finish and will take approximately 6 – 8 weeks.

There are many reasons to consider moving your existing pension arrangement to an alternative provider including:

Your current plans have expensive charging structures & a lack of transparency
Your financial advisers have not been in contact for a prolonged period or they do not provide specialist pension transfer advice.
You are receiving no ongoing financial advice yet the adviser who set up the plan still receives commission from your pension funds
The performance of your funds has been poor and your current arrangement does not offer a wide range of alternative pension funds.
You have various old personal pensions and you wish to consolidate them to make the administration more simplistic.
You are approaching retirement and an alternative provider can pay a higher level of annuity income during your retirement than your existing provider.
You do not wish to purchase an annuity and would like to access an arrangement that offers an income withdrawal facility.

Before any pension transfers are made you need to take impartial and independent financial advice from an adviser who is suitably insured and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Instructing an IFA to facilitate the transfer of your pension funds provides the key benefit of the IFA being insured and a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which will provide consumers with a high level of protection.

Trust Wayne Austin IFA now - call us on 0845 634 4420 or email us on info@wayneaustinifa.com

Prior to making any decisions you should consider the following:

Find an established Independent Financial Adviser who specialises in this area. This should be someone who conducts in depth analysis’ of pension arrangements on a regular basis and who also has vast experience of dealing with pension transfers.

Consider your personal circumstances and what your long term objectives are, after all retirement is the longest holiday of your life. Try and understand what you want from your money and what future changes could impact on you achieving your objectives.

Key requests prior to any transfers

View a copy of your financial advisers Professional indemnity insurance to ensure they are adequately insured for this type of business (Some are not).
Understand your consumer rights and cancellation period.
Meet with your Independent Financial Adviser at least three times prior to making a decision.
Demand an annual face to face meeting every year and obtain written confirmation of the level of service you will receive after your policy commences. Check your adviser will provide an ongoing service in terms of monitoring your pensions, if they do not offer this type of service then this will be to the detriment of your pension’s funds and later in life your standard of living.
Request your IFA to provide you with a written suitability report incorporating a pension transfer analysis; this will enable you to compare your current pensions with the alternatives available.

When alarm bells should sound

Don't switch from your existing occupational pension scheme to an alternative arrangement if both you and your employer are currently making contributions.
Don't transfer from a public sector pension scheme, such as the nurses' or the teachers' scheme, even if you left their employment several years ago.

These schemes are guaranteed against inflation no matter how much it may rise in the future. Unlike other schemes they also allow "linking" of different service years if someone returns to teaching or nursing after several years' absence. Some companies place a blanket ban on accepting transfers from these schemes, in the knowledge that the benefits cannot be matched.

Money placed in a personal pension will be subject to the rises - and falls - of the stock market, whereas a "defined benefit" i.e Final Salary scheme offers guaranteed benefits. This is more relevant to risk adverse investors
Check the death benefits of the former scheme, which may not be matched in a personal pension without having to buy a life insurance policy.

Any pension transfer is subject to strict rules and regulation, however, your IFA should be able to provide a simple and effective way of moving your accrued benefits once all the above considerations have been taken into account.

Call Wayne Austin IFA now on 0845 634 4420 or email us on info@wayneaustinifa.com