Stick with workplace Scottish Widows pension?

Hi All,

I’m 39 with a workplace pension via Scottish Widows (via salary sacrifice) with a pot of c. £150,000.

I’ve recently increased my contribution to 15% with my employer paying in 8%.

I’ve currently gone with the adventurous fund given that retirement is some way off (at least 20 years).

However I don’t like the lack of transparency and have my own and wife’s ISAs split between S&P 500 and Vanguard all world index.

My question is, would it be possible (and sensible) to move the pension pot to something like the Vanguard all
World index?

I would only do that if my employer contributions would
Still be paid but wanted to see if anyone else has moved away from a default employer pension?

Cheers

As above you can do a partial transfer. My employer uses Scottish Widows too, but I have had my own private SIPP elsewhere for many years which has given better returns. The Scottish Widows penson is the easy option to get the salary sacrifice benefit. I have it going into a cautious pot for encashment, and every 12 months I just do a partial transfer of the funds across into my main SIPP and continue with my investment strategy in that SIPP.

I’ve done the same twice recently from Legal & General to my Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP.

Both times it was painless and the ongoing month salary sacrifice contributions carried on.

This latest time however has been very difficult and L&G are refusing to action the transfer unless I provide evidence of attending “a free Pension Safeguarding Guidance appointment from the government-backed organisation, MoneyHelper”.

Annoying and I’ve asked them to specify exactly what has changed since the previous transfers to require this.

You should be able to start the transfer by asking your SIPP provider to do so. Hopefully Scottish Widows are more helpful than L&G.

If your Scottish Widows scheme is a GPPP you will be able to choose where both your and your employer contributions are invested. There are a lot of funds available to choose from. There are also a range of pre selected funds with higher risk profiles than the default. Workplace pensions have incredibly low charges and investment returns from Scot Widows default funds have historically been very good. Partial withdrawal into HL, SJP or other discretionary managed fund is possible but charges will be much higher and returns often lower even before charges are taken off.