December 9th, 2019.
You and Your Pensions: Taking Back Control
For many years now, pensions have been in the headlines for the wrong reasons. These days, you can rarely drive without hearing advertisements warning of pension scams on the radio. Thousands of British consumers have been taken for a ride by scammers and fraudsters, losing millions of pounds along the way.
Pension scams can be hard to spot. Scammers can be articulate and financially knowledgeable, boasting credible-looking websites, testimonials and materials that are hard to distinguish from the real thing. With people changing jobs, auto-enrolment pensions being introduced and with annual & lifetime allowances in place, it’s vital to get the right advice to ensure the best suitability of your pensions from a trustworthy source.
The need for advice
Since auto-enrolment pensions came in to play in 2012, the majority of individuals in the UK will have begun accumulating pensions, from the various roles they’ve worked in. According to recent research, during the average working life, a couple will work an average of six different jobs. Managing multiple pensions built up over the years is both difficult yet vitally important to ensure that your retirement is what you want it to be.
The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) suggests following these four simple steps to protect yourself from pension scams. However, there is more you can do to maximise and protect the potential of your pension.
For many, it will be challenging to live your retirement solely on a state pension of circa £175 per week. As such, it is essential to take control of your private pensions and make them work for you.
The best way to achieve this? Consolidation.
Benefits of Consolidating
The big advantage of consolidating your pensions is that you will have everything in one place, which makes administering your pension easier. This should give you more control over reviewing your investments, making any changes and, most importantly, understanding what you have and what this can provide for your retirement.
Most pensions that you have accumulated will have a management fee applied whether it is performing or not. Some will have product fees and fund investment fees, others may well have fees for advice associated with them too. Breaking down the true cost of pensions can be complicated.
The biggest potential cost to a pension is underperformance of investments. As such, an in-depth analysis must take into account every aspect of a pension. This process is only made more complex when there are several pension pots to consider.
The pension landscape has changed significantly over the years, resulting in newer solutions, some with very low management charges. Some older contracts can be expensive or restrictive in their investment choice. As such, regular reviews are recommended – as with most things in life – to ensure that you have what suits your needs best.
How can we help?
At Pure Wealth Management, we pride ourselves on being client focussed; we are proud to be directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
We actively research the market and stay up to date with industry news with regards to pensions and investments. We use sophisticated technology to enable us to identify the most suitable investments for our clients in relation to their goals and objectives.
With the client’s permission, Pure Wealth Management can obtain details of existing pensions already accumulated, look ‘under the bonnet’ of these and produce an analysis report in order to see if it’s worth considering a consolidation process. If so, we will get to know you and your family and what you hope to achieve entering later life.
At this stage, we utilise our state of the art technology to produce cashflow modelling forecasts which will sketch an idea of what would happen to your pensions over time, based on variable investment performance.
Pure Wealth Management is extremely proud to be completely independent, meaning we have access to all the funds and products in the open market. Our advisors are highly qualified, independent and hold the advanced Pension Transfer qualifications.
For more information or a no-obligation discussion regarding the subject of pensions, please feel free to get in touch with a member of the Pure Wealth Management team.
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