UK Private Pensions for US residents

[anonymous-user]

Does anyone have any experience with handling old UK PPP's for ex pats?

I have 3 old PPP's with three different companies that I haven't paid into for years. To be honest I haven't given them much thought but time rolls on etc... Ideally I would like to put them into one plan and then draw down when needed. Unfortunately the biggest one is with Zurich and they don't do drawdowns.

There are a lot of people advertising help with this issue but it looks like it's shark infested waters and I wondered if anyone here has experience working with anyone. UK financial advisors seem unable to help as they cannot talk to non UK residents.

Thanks.

[geeman237]

I'm in a somewhat similar boat, but I only have one small UK pension I started but stopped paying into years ago.

I started a slightly relevant thread here

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Last reply was a recommendation for a forum(?) called Bogleheads. I haven't followed that up personally, but it might have some use for you.

[anonymous-user]

geeman237 said:

I'm in a somewhat similar boat, but I only have one small UK pension I started but stopped paying into years ago.

I started a slightly relevant thread here

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Last reply was a recommendation for a forum(?) called Bogleheads. I haven't followed that up personally, but it might have some use for you.

Thanks, I'll check that out. I haven't paid into any of them for 25 years and ignored them until recently. But put together they're worth having so I need to stop being lazy and deal with them!

[LarryUSA]

I was in a similar boat last year. I had 5 pensions in various states and decided to track them down. Turns out some merged, some changed names, etc. Anyway, taking advice from a Tweet by Paul Ockenden of PC Pro magazine (of all people) I looked into PensionBee which is an app for my iPhone. I ended up transferring all but 1 of my pensions into this app, so now I have full visibility into them all from one place. One other I kept as is as there was a large penalty for transferring, think that was the old opt-out thing many years ago. Anyway, it suited me and made thing simpler all being in one place.

[anonymous-user]

LarryUSA said:

I was in a similar boat last year. I had 5 pensions in various states and decided to track them down. Turns out some merged, some changed names, etc. Anyway, taking advice from a Tweet by Paul Ockenden of PC Pro magazine (of all people) I looked into PensionBee which is an app for my iPhone. I ended up transferring all but 1 of my pensions into this app, so now I have full visibility into them all from one place. One other I kept as is as there was a large penalty for transferring, think that was the old opt-out thing many years ago. Anyway, it suited me and made thing simpler all being in one place.

I'll look into that, thanks. What I really want to do is consolidate them and then draw the cash out as and when required in my dotage.

[madtoro]

I had a company offer to review this for me for mine. They contacted all 5 (most of which had changed names etc..) they found the transfer values then proposed a way to move them stateside into one "bucket" but the costs didn't work for me. So I am also in this halfway house, at least I know where they are now and the values.

I'll also look into the android equivalent of Pension bee though!

[anonymous-user]

madtoro said:

I had a company offer to review this for me for mine. They contacted all 5 (most of which had changed names etc..) they found the transfer values then proposed a way to move them stateside into one "bucket" but the costs didn't work for me. So I am also in this halfway house, at least I know where they are now and the values.

I'll also look into the android equivalent of Pension bee though!

I now have a contact and am in the process of transferring all pensions into a UK SIPP at reasonable cost with a major UK provider (plc managing £5 billion). The advisor I am using specializes in UK pension holders living in the USA.

Pm me if you want contact details.

[off_again]

Ooo, interesting. I too have a pension that I havent paid into for years and probably should do something with it.

I saw all of those adverts a while ago, but having looked into the option of moving it to the US, realized it was a bit of a nightmare to get it done correctly and there are a lot of scams there.

One guy managed to get my details and hounded me for weeks. Strangely had a phone number in Hong Kong - which was weird because he said he was based in London. Mmmm. Anyway, I will PM you unrepentant.

[Matt Harper]

This might warrant some consideration, also....
https://www.ssa.gov/international/wep_intro.html

[anonymous-user]

Matt Harper said:

This might warrant some consideration, also....
https://www.ssa.gov/international/wep_intro.html

Yeah, that's a bummer.

[Matt Harper]

Quite stunningly, WEP and GPO was repealed last night - may be insignificant to some, but personally that benefits my wife and I to the tune of $1800 per month. Nice Christmas present!