Your money is held in a fund that the Company cannot touch. The value of your own pension account may go up or down depending on what happens to investment markets. While there are no guarantees about how much your pension will be when you retire, the Company cannot touch your money once it is in your personal account.
The Trustees have appointed Legal & General Investment Management Ltd to manage the day to day investments using pooled ‘index tracking‘ funds.
The trustees of the Plan are responsible for investment strategy and providing an appropriate range of funds for members. Their strategy, including the reasons for investing passively, is set out in the Statement of Investment Principles (S.I.P.), which is regularly reviewed.
Are any charges being applied by your previous scheme or policy for transferring?
Do you want all your investment eggs in one basket? i.e. You may prefer not to transfer thus giving you a greater spread of investments by having your Lifestyle fund and your previous benefits invested separately, perhaps in much different investment assets.
Alternatively, particularly if your pensions benefit is relatively small, you may decide to transfer into the Lifestyle Plan because it will be easier to keep track of your pension in one place.
Before deciding to transfer you need to compare the benefits expected from the arrangement from which you are planning to take the transfer value, with your expected entitlement in the Lifestyle Plan. Because the Lifestyle Plan is a money-purchase scheme (that is, the ultimate benefit depends on investment returns on the underlying funds and the cost of buying benefits when you take your pension) the comparison will be difficult, since the benefits payable cannot be predicted with certainty. If your other arrangement is also a money purchase scheme, it would certainly be wise to compare charges (including whether you would suffer a penalty by transferring) and investment choice.
Often it will be impossible to say whether leaving benefits where they are or transferring them into the Lifestyle Plan will be the best approach.
You may wish to consider taking independent financial advice before deciding whether to transfer or not, particularly if any of your previous benefits are in a final salary pension scheme.
Any lump sums due will be paid under discretionary trust (with the exception of any benefits arising from any contracted-out part of your account). This means that the Trustees of the Lifestyle Plan have to decide who is to receive the benefit. The purpose of this arrangement is to ensure that the payment is free from inheritance tax under current legislation and that it can also be paid quickly without needing to wait for Probate etc.
Although the Trustees have the final decision as to who receives any death benefit, a form is provided so that you can indicate the person or persons whom you would wish the Trustees to consider.
If you later wish to alter any details you should complete a new form. If you would like a nomination form and envelope please contact the Pensions Department.
Whenever your personal circumstances change, it is likely that you will want to change the details of how you would like any lump sum death benefit to be paid.
Each time your circumstances change, you may need to complete a new form to inform the Trustee of your new wishes. If you would like a nomination form and envelope please contact the Pensions Department.
If you are entering into divorce proceedings, you may need to provide details of your pension benefits. Contact the Pensions Department for the value of your pension account under the Lifestyle Plan. The Court could decide to "split" your pension benefits, which could involve part of your pension account being allocated to your ex-spouse.