Posted By Liam Mc Conalogue
Anyone out there with any information on good H&S pension schemes to join for a 30 year old Construction H & S Advisor. Or any to steer clear of!

All responses gratefully received.


Many Thanks,

Liam

Posted By Mal Greenhouse
I agree that a pension is personal to the circumstances of the individual and as such you need tailored advice.

I assume that the fact that you are looking for your own scheme means that none is provided by an employer or that you are self employed?

You will therefore be seeking to build a pot of money that will then purchase an annuity when you retire. Again there are rules about when you can buy the annuity but generally the older you are the more you get because they have worked out that you will not live as long. You can buy annuities that give you yearly increase and ones that provide for half rate partner pensions, all of which reduces the initial pension.This personal pension is similar to a money purchase company scheme but without employer conntributions.

You could therefore look to a stakeholder pension which as the benefit of small administration chargers.

Given that you are looking at 30-35 years of contributions you should think of a stock market based scheme which history tells us provides a better growth over the long run against deposit accounts.

Given this you then need to decide if you want a managed scheme with a specialist picking stock or do you want a tracker of an index?

I would go for an index but then the question is which one. The mid caps 100-250 shares have done better than the top 100 share index in recent years but past performance is no guarantee of future.

Regular contributions will ensure that you buy when the market is low as well as high. However if you think you could read the market you could try only investing in an index tracker when you think the market is low. This takes time, effort and will power! It also means that you have to understand the Inland Revenue rules about when you can make contributions and how much they can be.

If you think you could do this then why not go the whole hog and manage your own pension through a SIPP, Self Invested Personal Pension Plan. Can be expensive and risky but at least you get to make all the decisions.

In the near future you will be able to invest in property and add it to your SIPP pension fund including taking a mortgage out to buy the property. However I only read this in the Sunday paper recently and you will need special advise.

Maximun contributions to schemes. The rules around pensions are looked after by the Inland Revenue who dictate what can be set aside based on age and percentage of income. They also cover the period of the pension for maximum benefits. The maximum benefits are 2/3 final salary with no lump sum or 1.5x final salary lump sum plus 1/2 rate pension or a mixture of the two. My pension would take 40 years to acheive this and is final salary based but I believe that some lucky people, captains of industry can acheive this within 20 years!

What would I do?

1/Get a job with a final salary pension?

2/Get a job with some kind of pension that an employer contributes to.

3/Take financial advise but not before reading up on the questions you should ask if only by asking what did the person who wrote this mean when they said......

Hope this helps

Mal