Equitable Life Policyholders - Happy New Year?

[55palfers]

Any EL policyholders here?

Seems that Jan 1 is the big day that EL is closed and our funds get transferred to a new mob.

Anyone got any thoughts on Utmost Life & Pensions?

Worth leaving the funds there or moving them out to an existing pot?

[55palfers]

We should be getting a letter by the end of January with our final policy balance.

If you haven't done anything yet regarding what type of fund you want Utmost to open for you, the money will be held in a cash account for 6 months.

Therefore, you have 6 months to move the wedge to your SIPP before Utmost will open a fund for you.

All here.

https://www.utmost.co.uk/equitable-life/equitable-...

I'm minded to move to an existing pot, but I've no idea of Utmost performance / charges.

[55palfers]

JulianPH said:

I have been all over their website and just called them. They could not tell me either.

It is quite terrible TBH.

I agree.

Sums up the whole Equitable saga.

[55palfers]

Well, there's one day of January left and we were supposed to get our final settlement letters before the end of the month.

Anyone had theirs yet?

[55palfers]

Nothing today, not holding my breath for tomorrow either.

[55palfers]

Postie has brought me nothing but a new Private Eye.

Maybe tomorrow..

Still, after 20 years, what's another day or so?

I suspect it's impossible to say if the settlement is fair, I am just pleased to be getting something back just in time to bolster the retirement pot a little.

[55palfers]

Good news then. I await the postman tomorrow.

[55palfers]

My letter has arrived!

A reasonable uplift from the last Equitable statement I had in May 2019.

Given that I thought my money had mostly gone down the toilet 20 years ago, I suppose I am relieved to be where I am today.

We need to see what the fee structure of Utmost will be regarding staying with them or moving it out to another pot.

[55palfers]

As I understand it, the value on everyone's letter is in good old hard cash.

You can put it into one of Utmost's funds or transfer it out to another pension pot.

You have 6 months to decide before they will invest it on your behalf based on any Risk Appetite info you have previously submitted and your age.

[55palfers]

All you City types out there....

Is now the time to move the cash money from Utmost into an existing pot?

I appreciate markets may fall further, but we'd still get significantly more units than a week or so ago and I'm not greedy.

[55palfers]

Ean218 said:

You may be surprised how long it takes to get the cash out!

I wasn't expecting that. I thought my money would be ring fenced in a specific coffee jar

[55palfers]

Thanks. I see.

I have the forms, so will post them in the morning now. Welcome to 2020!

[55palfers]

Update.

I am getting an existing pot to handle the transfer. It took them a week to get off their backsides after receipt of my form.

They contacted Utmost about 10 days ago requesting the transfer value.

Nothing heard since.

I appreciated Covid may be a spanner in the works.

At least the Utmost pot is cash......

[55palfers]

Still nothing from Utmost.

[55palfers]

It's another week and still bugger all for me too.

I mean, just how long does it take to write a sodding cheque?

The funds are there in cash, no units to unload, no shares to sell, nothing "iliuquid", just cash money.

[55palfers]

I was hoping to buy some pension pot tokens whilst the market was low.

Can't believe it takes so long to transfer cash in this day and age.

Very poor show indeed. No wonder "Financial Services" are reviled.

Will waste some more of my life and chase tomorrow.

[55palfers]

Had my Annual Pension Statement from Utmost this morning.

Appears the money is not actually held as "cash" as we were led to believe, but invested in some sort of a unit-linked "Secure Cash Fund"

They didn't make that distinction clear at the time, did they??

And by the way, still no news about transferring to my other pot.

[55palfers]

Helicopter123 said:

Utmost aren't using the industry system to transfer plans electronically, but even so, this has taken much longer than I would have anticipated.

Thanks for that.

What method are they using please? A cheque in the post?

I'm getting pretty fed up with them.

[55palfers]

UPDATE

I have eventually spoken to someone at Utmost.

They are claiming they didn't get the form / letter from receiving pension pot dated 24 March until 29 April!

However, it's now the 12th May and they haven't actually done anything. That point seemed to pass them by.

Utmost are now telling me I have to wait for an "Options Pack" and fill in the forms and return then.

They won't do anything without those forms being completed.

It may have been nice if receiving pension pot had given me the heads-up on this and I wouldn't have wasted quite so much time!

Also, receiving pension pot hadn't actually contacted Utmost to chase them despite my request on 22 April?

I could have got the bloody forms myself in early March.

No wonder Financial Services have such a poor reputation.

...and finally, let's not forget the only reason we are in this situation is because Equitable were "apparently" a bunch of crooks.

[55palfers]

M4cruiser said:

55palfers said:

UPDATE

No wonder Financial Services have such a poor reputation.

...and finally, let's not forget the only reason we are in this situation is because Equitable were "apparently" a bunch of crooks.

No. "bunch of crooks" isn't really fair. Equitable had a unique combination of selling method, investment plan and payouts. It was based on optimism, and it served them well for a long time. Then they made some poor decisions in a difficult market.

Many people have done exactly that. It's not the same as deliberately setting up some kind of pyramid scheme, knowing it will fail so the top people get away with all the investments themselves - that's not what happened.

The Penrose Report wasn't exactly a glowing endorsement of the senior bosses was it.

"A culture of manipulation and concealment"