Retirement plans Get to grips with your pension this year 4. Check your investments
The new year is a chance to refresh and make plans to improve your retirement prospects. Here are fi ve suggestions to get you started.
1. Track down any lost pensions
If you have moved jobs frequently, or your address has changed, you may have pensions that you have lost track of. Research suggests there are around 1.6 million unclaimed pots worth £19.4 billion – the equivalent of nearly £13,000 per pot.1
Tracking down a lost pension can be as simple as making sure any old pension providers have a current address for you. If you have recently moved house, you should write to the pension company, tell them your new address and ask for a statement.
2. Check your State Pension
It’s very hard to plan your retirement without a full view of your State Pension. It’s therefore a good idea to check how much State Pension you could get and when you could get it. You can do this online at
www.gov.uk/check-state-pension.
You will also be able to see your National Insurance record, and whether you can improve it. You might be able to fi ll gaps by claiming National Insurance credits, or making voluntary National Insurance contributions.
3. See if you can pay in more
Pension policy is an area that has been neglected since the Brexit referendum result, so it’s possible the government will announce a review of pension taxation in the Budget on 11 March. Therefore, if you’ve still got a few years to go before retirement, think about boosting your personal pension now, so that you can benefi t from current rates of tax relief and potentially enjoy a higher income when you stop work.
If you have surplus cash that is not earmarked for other purposes and you haven’t used all your 2019/20 pension allowances, making a one-off pension contribution can be a smart way to get nearer that retirement goal.
Ensuring that your retirement fund is appropriately invested and suffi ciently diversifi ed is crucial. Therefore, asset allocation should be reviewed regularly to ensure it still refl ects your attitude to risk.
A fi nancial adviser can rebalance your investment portfolio and get your target asset allocation back on track. They can also help to ensure your fi nancial plan remains appropriate and is on course to achieve its goals.
5. Nominate benefi ciaries
Most pension schemes allow anyone to inherit your pension savings – they don’t have to be your spouse or civil partner. There’s no limit to the number of people you can nominate.
Passing on pensions is done through completion of an ‘expression of wish’ form. This tells the trustees of the pension scheme to whom they should pay death benefi ts. It’s important to keep this updated, ideally at least annually, but also when either your own circumstances or those of your proposed benefi ciaries change.
Scott Symes
FPFS, Certs CII (MP & ER) Chartered Financial Planner Symes Wealth Management Limited 01202 951227 • 07885 899742
scott.symes@
sjpp.co.uk www.scottsymeswm.co.uk
1 The Pensions Policy Institute, October 2018
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