Company Pensions

The amount of pension income that you receive may depend on your income and length of service (final salary schemes), or it may simply depend on the amount in your pension fund (money purchase schemes).

Pension benefits from final salary schemes are usually in a standard form, which will usually include a spouse's pension. This may not be suitable for everyone. For example, this is of no benefit to someone who has always been single and always intends to be single. They may be able to get a bigger pension income by taking a transfer value and buying a pension elsewhere on a single life basis instead.

A person in poor health may also be better off transferring out of their company pension scheme, as increased rates may be available in the open market in these circumstances.

If a transfer is to be considered it is important to conduct a full assessment of all of the scheme benefits, to ensure that all the implications are understood and that all meaningful benefits are replaced in full by the new scheme.

Professional independent advice is essential, to ensure that any transfer is truly to your advantage.

For a review of your occupational pension scheme, and information or advice on the options available to you, contact us.

Security of final salary pension schemes

Over recent years there has been concern over the security of company pension schemes. However, once retirement benefits are taken the income is relatively secure. In the event that a pension scheme becomes insolvent, the interests of scheme members already drawing their pensions have priority. In the event that the scheme cannot honour those pension payments, the Pension Protection Fund provides protection, although future pension increases may not necessarily be as high as the scheme intended to pay.

For further information on general pension planning issues, see Individual Pensions.