Compare UK Pension Services
Compare pension services for self invested pensions (SIPPs) where you can pull your existing pension plans into one place.
Lost track of old pension plans? Service for tracking down plans from previous employments.
Annuity service if you are looking to buy a guaranteed income from your pension pot.
Looking To Retire At Age 55? FREE Guide
FREE Guide – Retiring Early!
8 tips for an earlier, wealthier retirement
Transforming that dream into a reality doesn’t come cheap, how could you afford it? Once you have paid off debts, like it or not, the answer is likely to depend on your pension.
Straightforward guide provides eight tips that could help you to retire earlier than you thought, including:
- The simple formula for how much you should consider investing each month
- How to boost existing pensions
- Understanding the options available at retirement (including the new rules)
This guide is not personal advice. Please remember tax rules can change and the value of the tax benefits will depend on your circumstances. The value of investments can fall as well as rise so you could get back less than you invest. Pensions cannot usually be withdrawn until age 55 (increasing to 57 in 2028).
Self Invested Pension
Take Control of your pension!
A self-invested personal pension (SIPP) is different to a traditional pension. Instead of limiting your investment options, a SIPP opens the doors, giving you more choice in how you invest your money. Like other pensions, the government will still give you up to 46% tax relief on the amount you pay in. Once your money is in a SIPP, you won’t have to pay tax on any gains or income your investments make.- Low cost award winning pension – Fixed fee plan keeps costs down over long term
- Investment choice – Choose from more than 40,000 investments
- Ready made funds and investment ideas – Making it easy to select investments
- Expertise – Research, ideas, and updates to help you with your investment decisions
Compare Self Invested Pension Providers
A low cost award-winning SIPP that gives you a choice of over 40,000 investments; Selected funds; Ready made portfolios.
Sipp fee: £5.99 pm – assets up to £50,000, £12.99 pm – assets over £50,000
Low-cost personal pension from award-winning provider Bestinvest. Choose from thousands of investments, get inspiration from guides and articles or opt for a Ready-made Portfolio
Sipp fee: up to 0.4% pa
A wide choice of investments, including over 2,000 funds, shares from 25 markets, ETFs, investment trusts and more
£0 – £250k: 0.25%
£250k – £500km: 0.1%
Over £500k: FREE
Over 11,000 investments to choose from including funds, investment trusts, ETFs, company shares, bonds and more.
£0 – £250k: 0.45%
£250k – £1m: 0.25%
£1m – £2m: 0.10%
Over £2m: FREE
Thousands of funds to choose from; Select 50 – Browse a list of expert picks. Pathfinder – Risk profiled fund options. Investment Finder – Search 1000s of investment ideas.
Less than £25,000: 0.35% if you have a regular savings plan or £90 (£7.50 a month) if you don’t
£25,000 or more but less than £250,000: 0.35%
£250,000 or more but less than £1 million: 0.20% – and you will automatically qualify for Fidelity’s Wealth Management Service benefits
£1 million+: 0.20% a year for the first £1 million and no service fee for investments over £1 million
Annuity Services
Pension Finder & Transfer Service
There are no tables for this criteria
Investment Annuities
Investment annuities are a comparatively recent concept in the financial services market.
A conventional annuity is by its very nature inflexible, as it cannot be altered once started and unless you have chosen to include regular increases in your annuity payments outset, your annuity income will remain level throughout your lifetime, thereby gradually being eroded by the effects of inflation.
Thinking of buying an Annuity from your pension fund or from private capital? Our Annuity Service provides:-
- Depending on your pension provider up to 40% more annuity income
- Information on investment annuities including with profit annuities
- Assessment of your circumstances to find the most suitable type of annuity for you or whether there are any other options more suited to you
- Information on lifestyle annuities – including smoker annuities and impaired health annuities you may get even more annuity income
- Comparing annuity rates to ensure that you maximise your annuity income
- Explaining the investment annuity options available to you
- Helping you with the relevant paperwork to ensure that you annuity is processed smoothly
There are different types of annuity for different requirements and our Guide to Annuities gives a brief overview of this financial product.
Investment Annuities:
In response to this investment annuity products have been developed. With traditional annuities the insurance company assumes all of the investment risk – you purchase your annuity with a lump sum and it is up the insurance company to invest this money in order to provide your guaranteed income. You will still receive your annuity income irrespective of whether the insurance company has invested your lump sum wisely.
To address the perceived issue of inflexibility, with investment annuities, however, your annuity payments are linked to the performance of an investment fund and by doing this, you bear the investment risk, not the insurance company. Some investment annuities have an “assumed growth rate” so rather than opting for a level annuity or one which increases each year, you assume a minimum annual rate of return. This will be the minimum annual investment return that needs to be achieved by your chosen investment fund and if the fund achieves the rate that you have assumed, your investment annuity will remain level. If the investment returns achieved are higher than that which you have assumed, your annuity for that year will rise and conversely, if the investment returns are less, then your annuity will also fall for that year.
So, if you assume an investment return of 3%, and that is what is achieved, your annuity remains level. If the following year, the investment return on your chosen fund is 10%(because of favourable equity markets) then your annuity income will rise too, although not necessarily by this amount. Conversely, if the investment fund actually loses value, the level of your investment annuity is also likely to fall. Investment annuities may carry a minimum income guarantee below which your annuity income cannot fall although this is not a feature of all investment annuities.
- Your age at outset
- Gender and lifestyle (i.e. if you are a smoker)
- The purchase price
- Annuity rates at the time of purchase
- Type of annuity required, ie, single life or whether you want to include a widow/widower’s pension
- Rate of return assumed (if applicable)
The success or otherwise of investment annuities depends to a very large degree on the investment fund that you choose. Assuming a greater level of investment risk, ie, going into an investment fund which has the potential to provide greater returns, will in turn provide you with the greatest potential to achieve a rising income. Of course, investment funds which provide the greatest potential for investment returns are also more inclined to suffer greater levels of loss, due to their higher volatility, and so you are equally likely to have an income that falls too.
By choosing a very low risk investment fund in order to minimise the chances of your annuity income falling also means that you are minimising your chances of your investment annuity increasing because low risk funds will generally have lower levels of investment returns, although this is not always the case!
Investment annuities can overcome the problem of your traditional annuity income being eroded due to the effects of inflation and this is especially true in a market where share prices are rising. In a time of turbulent share markets, however, this could result in reducing annuity incomes, particularly if high investment rates have been assumed.
Investment annuities aren’t for everyone but they are an option which should be explored. The concept is quite a complex one will generally only be suitable for those with larger investment funds or where the annuity will not be the main source of income in retirement AND for those willing to assume a level of risk that makes the potential expected gain over and above what could be expected from a conventional annuity worth it.
10 COSTLY PENSION MISTAKES
10 Costly Pension Mistakes Millions of Britons Make
- How to discover if your pension will be enough
- What ‘free money’ most private sector workers miss out on
- How to get a share of £41 billion from the taxman
- How to benefit from the pension freedoms and avoid the traps