High product charges could be eroding the value of your pension fund

The bad news for pension policyholders is that on the 26^th March 2009, the average IMA Balanced Managed Pension Fund had delivered a return over the last 10 years of only 8.7%, or just 0.84% per annum compound.

To make matters worse, unnecessary product charges could easily have wiped out this modest gain and pushed your pension fund into a loss. In times of low growth, it is therefore vital that charges are kept to an absolute minimum.

The charges taken from private pensions vary hugely from one product to another. Also, the amount of commission paid to the adviser (both at the time of the sale and each year afterwards) has a significant effect on the charges you pay.

A good quality, modern personal pension with no commission paid to an adviser will typically have a charge of around 0.6% p.a. However, if your adviser has taken full commission and selected specialised fund managers, the charges can easily increase to 2% p.a. or more, which can drastically reduce your pension (see box on right).

At savemypension.co.uk we can protect your retirement savings by:

• reducing your product charges to the absolute minimum
• minimising your exposure to taxation
• ensuring your funds are well managed and invested in sympathy with your risk profile

It’s not just us who are saying this

Recent research by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) into the quality of pension advice uncovered some alarming results. A high proportion of cases they audited resulted in unsatisfactory outcomes for the client and this has led to the FSA issuing stricter guidance for advisers.

You can find out more about their findings at www.fsa.gov.uk but a key failing was found where individuals were advised to invest in a higher charged product, when there were lower cost products that would have satisfied their needs.

It is this key failing that we are looking to address.

Our proposition is clear and simple. For a fixed fee, we will review your existing pension(s) and provide an unbiased report and recommendations. We can then carry out the recommendations or you can make your own arrangements if you prefer.

By charging a fee for the review we remove any concern you may have of our advice being biased by commission, as we are not reliant on selling a product in order to be paid for our time. (Please download our Service Proposition & Client Agreement for full details of services and costs).

We are aware that other websites exist that offer to set up a pension for a fixed fee. However, our proposition is different because we will actually analyse your existing policy and give you independent financial advice, rather than just presenting you with a list of options and making you do all the research into the best one for you.