Royal London with profits pension fund performance.

[Mazinbrum]

I’m in the the process of retiring early and while sorting out my finances offered to look at my wife’s pension. She has a Teachers pension and an additional Royal London fund - RLCIS OB & IB fund (old CIS co-op). I can’t find any performance data on this fund as I was thinking it might be better to transfer it elsewhere.

Does anyone know anything about this fund and are with profits funds any good? Last time I had any dealings with one of those was my endowment policy and we all know how good they were!

[jet_noise]

What does the policy say?
Have you asked them for an illustration/quote?

If it's been around for long enough then there may be a guaranteed annuity rate which can be useful.

Opinionated person on the internet, not an IFA

[williaa68]

My main DC pension is with Royal London in one of their "governed portfolios" (6 at the moment I think). It was recommended to me and Ive been very happy with it, not least because it is extremely cheap, particularly after their annual profit share distribution is taken into account. Ive always found them very helpful on the phone - I doubt they will be there today but worth a call tomorrow. As noted above, if there is a GAR or similar it may not be a good idea to transfer.

[craig1912]

williaa68 said:

My main DC pension is with Royal London in one of their "governed portfolios" (6 at the moment I think). It was recommended to me and Ive been very happy with it, not least because it is extremely cheap, particularly after their annual profit share distribution is taken into account. Ive always found them very helpful on the phone - I doubt they will be there today but worth a call tomorrow. As noted above, if there is a GAR or similar it may not be a good idea to transfer.

I’m with RL too in their governed portfolios but, they are very different to the with profits funds

https://www.royallondon.com/siteassets/site-docs/a...

https://adviser.royallondon.com/pensions/investmen...

You need to speak to them as whilst there doesn’t seem to be any guaranteed rates, there maybe a terminal bonus which could be quite valuable depending on how long she has to go to retirement

Edited by craig1912 on Wednesday 1st January 11:17

Edited by craig1912 on Wednesday 1st January 11:21

[The Leaper]

If it's a with profits policy that is pensions related, there is likely to be a GAR which is also likely to be valuable. If wife is thinking of retiring early and taking the pension from this policy she is likely to forfeit any bonus on maturity because she will be cashing the policy early. She should contact Royal and ask for quotes on various scenarios according to her intentions, and then decide what action to take now, if any.

If the value of the policy is over £30,000 and she wants to transfer she will need to get independent advice from an IFA before Royal will agree to make the transfer.

R.

[craig1912]

[quote=
If the value of the policy is over £30,000 and she wants to transfer she will need to get independent advice from an IFA before Royal will agree to make the transfer.

R.
[/quote]
doubt it if just a DC scheme with no guarantees. Think you are getting confused with final salary CETVs

[Mazinbrum]

So her policy does have a guaranteed annuity rate and will hopefully get a terminal bonus (they say they aim to pay one though they suspended the yearly bonus!).
I’ve still no idea if this is a good policy or not so will just leave it as it is.

[JulianPH]

Mazinbrum said:

So her policy does have a guaranteed annuity rate and will hopefully get a terminal bonus (they say they aim to pay one though they suspended the yearly bonus!).
I’ve still no idea if this is a good policy or not so will just leave it as it is.

Ask them for a projection including any terminal bonus.

It will not be guaranteed, but should give you a better idea.

If the GAR makes more sense than the benefits of drawdown then sticking as you are could be the best thing to do.

If, however, they are purposely keeping the value as it is/has been in order to reduce the impact of the GAR, then this may be worthless (and we have seen this happen on several occasions).

For example, if the pension today is worth £100k and has a 10% GAR that can be taken very soon, that is fantastic.

But if it is still going to be worth £100k in 10 or 20 years time then the GAR could be effectively worthless.

There is no requirement to pay for advice if you did decide to move BTW.

You can always ask Nik to go through this with you. You know you will get an honest and professional evaluation either way.

Happy New Year matey!