old pension join with new pension ?

D

dodo

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I have a Pension from an company I used to work for about 50K fund, I am now entitled to join the pension scheme in my job as there a year, should I transfer the pension fund with the 50K into the new plan?
is either option better ie have just 1 pension or join them together to have 1,

tks
 
You'll probably have to dig into the detail a bit to find out. Does the new fund offer you a better range of investment choices or lower charges? There probably isn't any benefit in principle from having all your funds together, other than the minor administrative benefit of just having one account.

There might be some security benefit by not having all your eggs in one basket. Are all members of the fund on defined contribution?
 
There are lots of things to consider:

1. Is the old company still going and do they have your current address? You will have to keep track of your old employer up to retirement. Companies close, merge and get bought out, so you will have to keep up to date on their movements.
2. Under legislation, you have to be in the scheme for 2 years to be legally entitled to the value of the employers contribution (the trustees may waive this). If you transfer your old benefits in, the years service under the old scheme are included in that 2 year period i.e. you can be a member of the new scheme a month but because you had over 2 years membership of the old scheme, you are entitled to your current employers benefits immediately. ;)
3. You can transfer the benefits to a buy out bond or PRSA and have complete choice over the investment funds. A lot of scheme have a very limited fund choice and you may find yourself restricted.


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie
 
SBarrett said:
There are lots of things to consider:

1. Is the old company still going and do they have your current address? You will have to keep track of your old employer up to retirement. Companies close, merge and get bought out, so you will have to keep up to date on their movements.
Click to expand...

Am I right in think that he'll have to keep track of his old pension fund, rather than his old employer. The fund is separate to the employer, and it doesn't really matter to him what happens to the employer - right?
 
It's set up under trust so yes, it's separate from the assets of the company. It's the trustees you need to keep an eye on and in a lot of cases, the trustees are the company. I've had plenty of cases, where it's taken me weeks to track down people who are able to sign as a trustee. Better to get it in your own name or with a current employer.

The fund itself is easy enough to track as there's a paper trail.

Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie
 
dodo said:
I have a Pension from an company I used to work for about 50K fund, I am now entitled to join the pension scheme in my job as there a year, should I transfer the pension fund with the 50K into the new plan?
is either option better ie have just 1 pension or join them together to have 1,

tks
Click to expand...

This Key Post outlines some of the things you should consider if thinking about transferring a fund from one pension scheme to another.
 
I am in a very similar situation.

Old pension scheme is in an ongoing Irish company. It is a DC pension and has 0.75% management fee p.a. for both active and deferred members.

New pension is also in an Irish company. It is a DC pension and has 0.3% management fee plus 0.15% "operational costs", giving 0.45% total fees per annum.

Based on the reduced charges alone, would it be a no-brainer to move the old pension to the new one?
 
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