AutoMetric Supercapp Pension

As we were directors of a Ltd. company, my husband took out a private pension about 22 years ago. The company subsequently closed down (no creditors etc.) after approx 10 years due to health issues. At that time it was an expensive pension fund in relation to what others were paying but, our financial advisor told us that this was because we wished to retire at 50.

Subsequently my husband became employed as a PAYE worker and now pays pension contributions through his place of employment. As he has been offered AVCs (and had hit 50) we contacted the provider of our private pension to discuss cashing in or transferring contributions to his new pension scheme.

The company we originally took the pension with was bought over and the financial adviser has died.

We have been told that this type of pension cannot be moved and that we cannot retire early. The funds to which it is attached have performed very badly and that if my husband works to age 70 the payments will be 550 per month!!

Even if he lived to 90 we would not get back what we've paid in at that rate. Can anything be done about retiring early from this fund while still employed (the Ltd. Co. no longer exists).

Has anyone ever heard of this type of pension? The provider says the problems arise due to the type of pension it is.

It appears your husbands 'old' pension was not a private pension but was an executive pension as retirement at 50 is not available under private/personal pensions.

I would suggest you contact the financial advisor for the company pension scheme that your husband currently contributes to. Tell them the difficulties you are having in transferring your existing executive pension to the company scheme. Hopefully they can help.

The earliest Normal Retirement Age for Executive or Personal Pension is age 60.

Friday said:

It appears your husbands 'old' pension was not a private pension but was an executive pension as retirement at 50 is not available under private/personal pensions.

I would suggest you contact the financial advisor for the company pension scheme that your husband currently contributes to. Tell them the difficulties you are having in transferring your existing executive pension to the company scheme. Hopefully they can help.

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His new pension is public sector and no particular help available there. Always thought we had a personal pension. Have been told that the financial advisor we originally went to would 'say mass' if it made him a commission!! Back in the days before IFSRA etc.

Thanks for the help.

CapitalCCC said:

The earliest Normal Retirement Age for Executive or Personal Pension is age 60.

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But can one retire before 60 even subject to penalty?

Thanks

Yes possible to early retire from age 50 - but the NRA could not be less than 60...

As the original pension was set up with a view to retiring early at age 50, I can only assume that it was an Occupational Pension Scheme rather than a Personal Pension. From the title, I also presume that your husband took it out with Shield Life who were subsequently taken over by Eagle Star.

First, check with Eagle Star (1) whether it's an Occupational Pension Scheme or a Personal Pension, (2) if it's an Occupational Pension Scheme is there any penalty for transferring out of it now and (3) what's the transfer value now.

If you're not happy with the the Eagle Star fund, you could look at transferring this fund into a Personal Retirement Bond (or Buy Out Bond) with a different provider. You won't be able to make any future contributions but at least you'll have chosen a fund you prefer.

Alternatively, if it's an OPS your husband can choose to retire early from age 50 onwards, with the consent of the scheme trustees (which probably were the company itself).

Hi Marianne,

You're right, it was Shield Life and now Eagle Star. When we contacted them they said that this was the type of pension that is non transferrable. Nothing to do with penalties, they said, just that it's an old type not covered by recent Gov. changes which allow more flexibility.

They also say we were never entitled to retire at 50 but this was definitely what we requested at the time. We have been told that this type of pension is definitely non transferrable, cannot retire until 70 and if we just stop paying into it the pension will lapse and we will not be entitled to anything.

I'll contact them again as we had requested an explanation in writing but this never arrived. Thanks for the reply Marianne.

Marianne said:

check with Eagle Star (1) whether it's an Occupational Pension Scheme or a Personal Pension, (2) if it's an Occupational Pension Scheme is there any penalty for transferring out of it now and (3) what's the transfer value now.

If you're not happy with the the Eagle Star fund, you could look at transferring this fund into a Personal Retirement Bond (or Buy Out Bond) with a different provider. You won't be able to make any future contributions but at least you'll have chosen a fund you prefer.

Alternatively, if it's an OPS your husband can choose to retire early from age 50 onwards, with the consent of the scheme trustees (which probably were the company itself).

Click to expand...

It is a personal pension. Checked again today and was told that it is in a secure fund and cannot be transferred so Buy Out Bond is not an option. We are now told that we can retire at 60 at which time Eagle Star would write us a letter of offer, and we can decide whether we want to take lump sum or monthly repayments.

Apparently the only avenue open to us is to write to them saying we wish the pension to be 'paid in full' at which time we would stop making payments but the fund continues to operate until age 60 at least.

Obviously this is not what we thought we were getting from Shield Life, we thought we could retire early with the consent of the trustees. Now we have to decide whether to continue paying into this fund although I don't know what, if any, are the implications i.e. pros and cons.

Thanks for the help so far...any other words of wisdom gratefully received!

Hi Liteweight,

I was wondering if it was actually an Eagle Star Customer Services representative that you were talking to that gave you the information that you have outlined above?

Having read all of what has been posted above I suspect that you have been told that your husband's pension cannot be transferred as it is a personal pension and as such cannot be transferred into an occupational pension scheme which is what your husband is now a member of. It's not the personal pension itself but rather the type of pension that your husband wishes to transfer into is where the issue lies.

Does your husband have a separate sourse of income apart from his employment with the public sector? If not, it is possible that there may be some scope for taking a refund of some of the premiums paid into his personal pension due to ineligibility.

You also mentioned a premium of €550 possibly payable on the policy in the future. Is there possibly a large amount of life cover and/or Permanent Health Insurance attached to the policy, the cost of which could eat into the monthly premium your husband is paying and therefore make the investment element quite small?

Perhaps you should contact Eagle Star again.

Good luck,

Nellie

Hi Nellie,

Thank you from sunny Spain. Will ring Eagle Star again when we get home!! There is an insurance element. Husband does have another source of income but the argument could be made for it being basically from the same source (if that makes sense). Eagle Star have told us that because of the type of pension it is, that it cannot be transferred. This has nothing to do with where we want to transfer it to.

Thanks again.