Pension transfer advice you can trustTake control of your financial future.

Once you receive your CETV (cash equivalent transfer value, you have 3 months in which to decide whether you will transfer or not before that offer expires. It’s important that you factor in the time it will take to receive the advice you need. Ideally before or as soon you receive your CETV.

Across the industry it’s not uncommon to hear of defined benefit pension transfers taking up to 6 months, sometimes longer.

Our streamlined process is far quicker than that and we can usually turn around your report and transfer recommendation in around 3-4 weeks as long as we have all of the information we need.

It’s an in-depth process, but since you’ll always deal directly with our Qualified Pension Transfer Specialist, there won’t be any unexpected delays from our end.

However, you should be aware that we may need to request additional information from your pension trustees in order to provide you with the advice you need and this may cause delays which are beyond our control.

Delays in the pension transfer advice process could cause you to miss your CETV transfer deadline and will result in you having to request a new transfer value. Transfer values are subject to change so this could work for or against you.

There are a number of other factors that can affect how long a pension transfer might take including:

How quickly you respond to requests for information and how complete that information is.

How quickly Pension trustees respond to requests for information

How quickly pension trustees and associated pension companies action any request for a transfer

Pension trustees and pension providers in general, are not known for their fast turnaround times. Because of this we have a dedicated team who will chase your case daily if needed.

If you have a defined contribution workplace pension from a previous employer then it's likely that you could move it yourself.

However, even if this is the case it's worth speaking to a Pension Transfer Specialist as you may have associated benefits that you would lose if you transfer.

Guaranteed Benefits could include:

• A protected retirement age
• life insurance
• Preferential annuity rates
• Cash lump sum etc

Our pension specialists can carry out a full analysis of your pension scheme benefits and costs, advise if a pension transfer is in your best interests and help you build a suitable long-term financial plan.

Transferring a Final Salary Pension

If your Final Salary pension is worth less than £30,000 you are free to transfer your pension yourself without seeking advice.

If your transfer value is higher than £30,000 then it is a regulatory requirement that you seek ‘appropriate’ advice from a qualified pension transfer specialist. This means they will need to provide you with an in-depth report exploring your suitability to transfer and a personal recommendation to transfer or not.

Things a pension transfer specialist will consider:

• Your age
• Your financial situation and obligations
• Your long-term goals and motivations for transfer
• Any retirement plans you have
• Your general health and life expectancy
• Previous Investment experience
• Your understanding of and suitability for the risks involved in pension transfer
• Future Investment strategy

Almost all of the big pension providers and platforms now require you to have a positive recommendation to transfer. Which means, if a pension transfer specialist has deemed it not in your best interests to transfer, you may find it difficult to transfer your pension yourself.

Whilst this might seem frustrating, these rules are designed to protect you and your pension in the long term.

Transferring your Final Salary Pension to a personal pension arrangement may give you access to a large lump sum and offer you the freedom to invest and spend your pension pot as you see fit, but there can be significant costs and fees involved.

The full cost of a Final Salary pension transfer will depend on a number of factors:
● How much your pension is worth
● How much you pay for pension transfer advice,
● The costs of ongoing investments post transfer including any ongoing advice fees.

The value of your pension will usually affect how much a transfer costs you, since most work of this kind operates on a percentage of the value of your fund.

The cost of Pension transfer advice can range from advisor to advisor, so it’s worth shopping around to find the best deal for you, taking into account future advice costs and the costs of recommended products and associated platform charges.

Changes made by the Financial Conduct Authority in 2020 mean that contingent charging has now been banned. This means that you must be charged the same amount for advice whether you are recommended to or choose to transfer or not.

Regardless of who manages your money post-transfer you’ll be subject to investment costs depending on which investment products you choose.

For the vast majority or people, the answer to this question is generally, no. Final Salary Pensions provide valuable benefits that will be lost if you transfer out. And these benefits usually cannot be replaced on a like-for-like basis. For most people a Defined Benefit pension transfer is not in their best interests.

That said, whether or not you should transfer is entirely dependent on your individual circumstances and goals. It’s not possible to give you an answer to this questions without doing a full analysis of your situation.

As general guidance though there are factors that will make it more or less likely that a transfer would be suitable for you, which you can consider before you explore further.

1. Are you married or do you have dependent children?

   Defined benefit pensions don’t just provide a guaranteed income for life for you, DB schemes usually provide a survivor’s pension for your spouse or dependent children.

   If you’re not married and you don’t have any dependent children any money you’ve accumulated in your pension gets absorbed back into the pension scheme if you die, regardless of how long you have been taking your pension for.

   Find out more about what happens to your DB pension when you die

2. Do you have relevant investment experience?
3. Are you comfortable with investment risk?
4. Is your DB pension a supplementary income source that you could comfortably live without?
5. Is your DB pension protected by the PPF?
   
   Defined Benefit pension schemes in the UK are usually covered by the pension protection fund PPF, which protects Defined Benefit pension members if their pension fund becomes insolvent. It currently protects 90% of the value of members pensions (caps apply) and rises in line with inflation each year. The amount you can receive is capped but the majority of scheme members (99.5%) are not affected by this cap.

   If your sole motivation for transferring your Defined Benefit Pension is a concern over the future of your scheme, it’s important to understand if your scheme is covered or not, because if it is, then a transfer for this reason alone is not justifiable.

   Find out more about the Pension Protection Fund

6. Can you achieve your stated goals staying within your existing DB scheme?

   This year alone we’ve spoken to several individuals whose sole reason for seeking a transfer was because they were worried that their spouse would not be able to survive on a reduced spouse’s pension (usually 50% of a member’s DB pension). All were still in the 40s or early 50s with no ill health or reason to believe that they wouldn’t outlive their spouse.

   We were able to solve their problem whilst keeping them within the safety and security of their DB pension scheme by simply recommending an appropriate life insurance policy that would cover any shortfall in their spouses income in the event of their untimely death. This was a relatively low cost solution given the long-term cost and risk of transfer.

   Other examples of this include individuals who want to access tax-free cash at 55, who were able to find the money they needed through alternative sources. Sometimes, all it takes is a quick call with an expert to realise that there are alternative actions available to you.

See our Definitive Guide to Final Salary Pension Transfer for more information

The Financial Conduct Authority are the regulatory body that oversee financial advice in the UK.

It's their job to ensure that consumers get quality financial advice that safeguards their best interests.

If you want to find out what you should be looking for when it comes to receiving financial advice for your defined benefit pension transfer watch this helpful video below.

Again, try and provide as many details as possible 

• Your plan number
• Your date of birth
• Your National Insurance number
• Dates of employment
• The date you joined the pension scheme

Using the free pension tracing service

If you’re still struggling to find your old pensions – perhaps because you can’t find your old employer, or you don’t know the provider of an old personal pension – you can contact the Pension Tracing Service.

This is a free service which searches a database of more than 200,000 workplace and personal pension schemes to try to find the contact details you need.

You can phone the Pension Tracing Service on 0800 731 0193 or you can use the link below to complete an online request form.

When you move jobs, you leave your old workplace pension scheme, but you don’t lose the benefits you have built up.

You can keep your old pension where it is or move your pot to the scheme offered by your new workplace or to a Self Invested Personal Pension.

But if you are thinking about doing this, it is important to do it for financial – and not emotional – reasons. It’s crucial that you don’t move your pension pot out of a first-rate scheme simply because you want to cut all links with an old employer.

If there is no compelling reason to leave your old pension where it is, you may have the option to port your old workplace pension to your new employer’s scheme.

Alternatively, you could move it to a SIPP where you have more control over how it is invested.

Yuo can find out more about Pension Consolidation here