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Pensions Newquay

Pensions

Personal

What options are available if you don’t want to rely on the state when you retire?

A clear option is to pay into a personal pension.

This is an investment policy designed to provide a lump sum at retirement and an income for life.

Personal pensions do not usually appear on comparison websites. They tend to be more complex than other investment products and highly individual. 

Personal pensions are “money purchase arrangements”, meaning you regularly contribute to the policy and the money you save is invested to provide an income at the point of retirement. 

Personal pension contributions can be invested in most asset classes including UK and overseas equities, fixed interest, cash and commercial property.

When you invest in your personal pension, there are no guarantees of returns and the value of your investments can fall as well as rise.

Returns are based on the individuals ‘attitude to risk’ and therefore where the monthly contributions are invested.

In April 2014 the Government announced far reaching changes for personal pensions ‘at retirement’. The changes are due to come in to force on April 2015. The changes will provide more options at the point of retirement for most people and it is very important to explore all options available before taking the benefits from a pension fund.

Newquay Mortgage and Pensions are able to provide advice on all aspects of personal pensions and saving for retirement. We strongly recommend a face to face meeting to discuss your requirements and options in more detail.

Self-employed pensions

If you’re self-employed you’re entitled to the basic State Pension in the same way as anyone else. The full basic State Pension is currently available with 30 years of National Insurance contributions (there are proposed changes to this criteria in 2016).

Tax free lump sum

You’ll probably be given the option to take part of your pension savings as a tax free lump sum. Some schemes – particularly public sector schemes – will automatically give you a lump sum in addition to your pension.

Ill health pension

If you are suffering ill health and decide to take your personal or occupational pension, in certain circumstances, there might be other options available to you.

Pensions At Retirement

Traditionally the options at retirement have been limited to a lump sum and/or a monthly income. With product innovations the choices at retirement for the individual have now increased considerably.

Open market option

Traditionally, just before you reach your selected retirement age, you will receive two pieces of information from your pension provider:

Tax free lump sum

You’ll probably be given the option to take part of your pension savings as a tax free lump sum. Some schemes – particularly public sector schemes – will automatically give you a lump sum in addition to your pension.

Income Drawdown

‘Income Drawdown’ can be viewed as a more complicated option at retirement and might not suit every individual especially the risk averse.

Short term annuity

A short term annuity enables you to take a proportion of your pension fund and purchase an income, typically for 5 years.

Enhanced annuity

At the point of retirement, it is up to each individual to ensure they obtain the best benefits available from their pension fund…according to their own personal circumstances.

Ill health

With regard to ill health, any pension scheme can adopt a rule which allows a member to take early retirement (prior to normal scheme / regulators normal retirement age).

Company Pensions

A workplace pension is a way of saving for your retirement but it is arranged by your employer.

Workplace pensions are usually referred to as: ‘occupational’, ‘works’, ‘company’ or ‘work-based’ pensions.

How they work

Usually, a percentage of your pay is put into the pension scheme automatically every payday (although there are some schemes that do not require any contribution from the employee).

In most cases, your employer (and the government by way of tax relief) also add money into the pension scheme for you.

The money is used to pay you an income for the rest of your life at retirement.

You can usually take some of your workplace pension as a tax-free lump sum when you retire.

You can’t usually access the pension before the age of 55 – unless you’re seriously ill.

‘Auto enrolment’

A new law means that every employer must automatically enroll workers into a workplace pension scheme if they:

are aged between 22 and State Pension age

earn more than £8,105 a year

work in the UK

But there are other rules and criteria that can apply.

We can help you check if the new law applies to you and when you may be enrolled into your employer’s scheme.

If you’re already in a workplace pension scheme, you may not see any changes. Your workplace pension scheme could carry on as normal.

But if your employer doesn’t make a contribution to your pension now, they will have to by law when they ‘automatically enroll’ every worker.

Other Pensions

This relates to: Draw down; Open Market options; Short term annuities; Asset backed annuities; State pensions; NEST if you have any other interests, please call us or use the Contact Form.

Draw down

Members of defined contribution pensions schemes (i.e. money purchase, personal pensions and stakeholder pensions) can use their accumulated fund after age 55 to

Open Market options

You have the right to shop around, in order to find the best annuities deals on the market. The fact is that annuity rates vary so much between companies

Short term annuities

Most people are oblivious to the existence of short term annuities.  If you don’t know your options and get to retirement, the default option is to automatically take the lifetime annuity.

Asset backed annuities

Asset Backed annuities offer the chance of a higher income than you can get from a level or increasing annuity (often called ‘conventional annuities’) linked to fixed interest assets

State pensions

The basic State Pension is a regular payment from the government that you can get when you reach State Pension age.

NEST

Big changes to how millions of people across the UK will save for their retirement are coming. Here’s what you need to know about the NEST pension scheme and how