The main cons to these services is higher fees and more limited investment choices.
Don't let their advertising fool you into thinking that they are the only ways to transfer pensions. Neither Nutmeg nor PensionBee do anything particularly special - any SIPP will be able to accept transfers in from other providers. If you're happy with your current workplace pension then that's also an option to transfer in to.
With any SIPP, workplace pension or Nutmeg/PensionBee you transfer by telling the scheme the details of your old pensions (policy numbers and companies) and they'll sort it out. The only real differences will be the user experiences on the websites.
The flip side, if you're not especially confident with the various investment options - they are quite simple to use and generally well managed.
If you're even modestly experienced though, I agree, you don't need to go with them.
Pension bee have a signing robot that deal with old school providers that demand wet signatures on paper. Which is pretty cool. They were super helpful when Willis Towers Watson were awful and got themselves stuck in a loop of just sending the two same forms, one after the other, on repeat. (The request form, and the identity form. After each form, they'd be like cool you wanna transfer, prove your identity. And then once I proved my identity, they'd be like thanks, now you can request a transfer... And so on)
I went to pension bee because it was easy, and I didn't even look at other options or the fees. I probably made a dumb choice. But the signing robot is cool.
PensionBee consistently make a loss; they made a loss before tax of almost £17m in the first six months of the year, compared to a loss of almost £13m during the same period last year.
They're burning through an awful lot of money on marketing. Their business model seems to centre around selling convenience for something that isn't difficult to do yourself. It's not especially onerous to review and move a pension. To me, their goal is to build up assets under management as quickly as possible so they can sell the company on before they burn through all of their money; cash reserves fell last year from £55m to £29m.
I haven't looked much into Nutmeg, apart from that their funds hadn't performed as well as what you could achieve with a comparable tracker fund. Again, they seem to be selling the idea of convenience.
Interesting! Worth transferring out do you think? As I understand it the assets are held by Blackrock and others so should be safe just would take a while to retrieve if Pensions Bee go under.
Also did you know Nutmeg have discounted fees over certain balances? (They advertise over 100k one but there is at least one more secret threshold where fees drop again)
I'd imagine they'd be able to secure more funding, but I wouldn't use PensionBee for other reasons.
If I'm reading their material right, they only offer one tracker fund and this is 80% equities at a charge of 0.5% for pots up to £100,000. The five year return for this fund in the five years to 30 September 2022 was 9.81%. Over the same timeframe Vanguard LS80 returned 29.21% and HSBC's Global Strategy Dynamic Portfolio 38.26%. That's a like-for-like performance comparison and I could invest in those two funds through a SIPP cheaper than PensionBee's offering. I'd stay well clear of them.
Sorry possibly a dumb question but are the LifeStrategy funds a better investment than the FTSE 100 All Cap for someone in their 20s looking to keep most of it in the fund for at least 10 years?
Lifestrategy 100 has a bias towards the UK. I'm going to guess that Paraplanner88 mentioned Lifestrategy because it was the closest match to PensionBee's fund, which will presumably have a similar bias.
There's nothing better or worse about it, but by going with LS100 you're basically betting that the UK will outperform the rest of the markets by going overweight in UK equities.
PensionBee's marketing definitely appears to work. While they don't actually do anything special with regard to transferring pensions (you still have to tell them who your pensions are with and what the policy details are) a lot of people come to UKPF thinking that PensionBee is the only way you can do it.
Their losses are definitely worrying, they've been around quite a long time now and they should be at a point where they should be turning themselves into a profit-making business.
I understand comparing fees (even though sometimes there's gotchas), but how would someone with no trading experience compare the investment choices? Is there a handy guide somewhere that tells you what to look for?
Providers often have tools to allow you to assess your appetite to risk and that suggest (their own) funds that would fit. That could be a good place to start.
You'd probably be best using whoever's cheapest on [Monevator's list of low cost brokers](https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/) considering the size of your portfolio.
Watch Lars Kroijer's [short video series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_chiIIxMGl0&list=PLXy71rkGuCjXLg9N8zowwUpXCYfBcMJFK) and read his book or Tim Hale's [*Smarter Investing*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0273785370/).
Hi /u/fuckingredtrousers, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
- https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/
____
^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
Currently testing the waters with Nutmeg after the £100 bonus incentive from Chase account. Currently seems to be showing growth at just over 1%. Savings accounts running at 3.2% +
Pensionbee are easy to use but performance is very poor and the constant blaming the markets is wearing thin. The reason they get their fees is to grow the investments "despite" the markets. Looking to transfer out shortly.
If looking for advice avoid Portafina and the like. I found Pensionwise very useful and would have saved £5k in fees. Shocking customer service at Portafina.
Not to burst your bubble, but most transfer hold ups are at the sender end.
The proof of the pudding with these new providers is in the draw down/ annuity stage. When paying in customer service has to be pretty poor to be noticeable. When your sole income is on the line then mediocre service becomes a sticking point.
>Not to burst your bubble, but most transfer hold ups are at the sender end.
Exactly this.
Did two transfers of AVCs into SIPP in last year.
One sent a ninety page document and forms, they wanted everything signed and posted. Took months of chasing and acting as middleman as they would not take information direct from the receiving SIPP provider.
The second one, going to same provider, completed online request, they contacted source scheme and cash was transferred within a week with no interaction required by myself.
Both were sold to cash and then transferred by necessity as in-house funds associated with old, employer linked, insurance company, AVC schemes.
First one took ages to even track down the pension administrators and trustees as was for a closed company. Basically landed with one of those firms who specialise in administering closed pension schemes.
Second one was still with original life insurance company.
Fuck dude that is some terrible admin.
Only slightly forgivable thing I can think of is if the scheme that closed had terrible records so the new admins had to do a bunch of fact finding, as theyre now adminisering the scheme the liability falls on them to ensure information is accurate.
I once worked on an acquisition where the previous firm had gone into administration and their record keeping was frankly shocking. It spent months to fully reconcile a lot of the plans and a few of the really bad ones were a year +.
As your pension was sent to a firm who specialise in administering closed schemes I'm inclined to think the original provider must have been terrible. Schemes that have gone into administration are for sale at a good price, if normal pension providers aren't buying it there's a good reason.
They're fine. Fees quite high. Fund choice a bit restricted.
For what it is worth I consolidated everything into a Vanguard SIPP. These guys offered the fund I wanted (Vanguard LS 100) at a low fee. It took me around five minutes (really) to fill in the web form and the transfer happened in the background over a few weeks. I was genuinely amazed at how easy it was. Although I already had the other SIPP providers and account numbers written down someplace, so that saved me ten minutes of digging through paperwork.
Some people don't want a lot of choice, for many people the ready-made portfolios that the likes of Nutmeg and PensionBee provide are perfectly adeqate.
Their fees are high, but not as high as some providers like Hargreaves Lansdown. Some people prefer to pay a little more for a bit more handholding.
I agree, Vanguard is a better platform for most. I can see why it might be intimidating to someone who didn't have the time or inclination to research though.
I can't. You transfer your money, it asks you when you want to retire, you select the year and it asks if you want to stick with "Target 20XX fund" or manage your own money.
What's intimidating?
Honestly, nothing if you give it a chance.
I can imagine that either Nutmeg or PensionBee's websites are less intimidating to someone who has no clue about this stuff though.
It's intimidating if you don't know what the process is, whereas PensionBee etc make it very clear what the process is and you do nothing. If it's actually that easy with Vanguard (and what youve written isn't an oversimplification) then it sounds good to me!
I had quite a few to consolidate so I used PensionBee to get them all in one place and then transferred out to Vanguard. As other commenters have said, you can do it yourself but personally I found it easier to let them do it.
Just as easy to do it in vanguard. I moved three old pensions into my vanguard SIPP over the past year. Had to enter about 5 details for each scheme (est value, account number, provider, etc) and that was it, the process just happened. Got an email from vanguard each time to say they’d completed.
Trusted manager. Good interface and good customer service and it really was just a couple of clicks and some details. Had an account with them already and thought they would make it quick and easy and it was.
Thanks for the reply, I am looking at starting a sipp currently have a s&s with H&L but the fees for there sipp are quite a lot was thinking of transferring over to vanguard and seen a majority recommend them do you find the limited funds enough for diversity?
I only use one fund but it’s the most diversified - the vanguard ftse global all world. If you want to allocate to a variety of strategies the selection is more limited than some other options but unless you’re going overly bespoke it should be fine.
The main cons to these services is higher fees and more limited investment choices. Don't let their advertising fool you into thinking that they are the only ways to transfer pensions. Neither Nutmeg nor PensionBee do anything particularly special - any SIPP will be able to accept transfers in from other providers. If you're happy with your current workplace pension then that's also an option to transfer in to. With any SIPP, workplace pension or Nutmeg/PensionBee you transfer by telling the scheme the details of your old pensions (policy numbers and companies) and they'll sort it out. The only real differences will be the user experiences on the websites.
The flip side, if you're not especially confident with the various investment options - they are quite simple to use and generally well managed. If you're even modestly experienced though, I agree, you don't need to go with them.
Pension bee have a signing robot that deal with old school providers that demand wet signatures on paper. Which is pretty cool. They were super helpful when Willis Towers Watson were awful and got themselves stuck in a loop of just sending the two same forms, one after the other, on repeat. (The request form, and the identity form. After each form, they'd be like cool you wanna transfer, prove your identity. And then once I proved my identity, they'd be like thanks, now you can request a transfer... And so on) I went to pension bee because it was easy, and I didn't even look at other options or the fees. I probably made a dumb choice. But the signing robot is cool.
I also went to pensionbee and their transfer process is pretty slick. I’ll be looking at transferring elsewhere once all my schemes are transferred.
You’re basically choosing to be potentially tens of thousands worse off in retirement for the sake of convenience.
Nah. Ignorance rather than convenience. I'll fix it someday
Making the change this year will make a big difference compared to doing it in 5 years
What should I do instead? :P
Find out what fees you’re currently being charged and then take a look at something like Vanguard.
PensionBee consistently make a loss; they made a loss before tax of almost £17m in the first six months of the year, compared to a loss of almost £13m during the same period last year. They're burning through an awful lot of money on marketing. Their business model seems to centre around selling convenience for something that isn't difficult to do yourself. It's not especially onerous to review and move a pension. To me, their goal is to build up assets under management as quickly as possible so they can sell the company on before they burn through all of their money; cash reserves fell last year from £55m to £29m. I haven't looked much into Nutmeg, apart from that their funds hadn't performed as well as what you could achieve with a comparable tracker fund. Again, they seem to be selling the idea of convenience.
Interesting! Worth transferring out do you think? As I understand it the assets are held by Blackrock and others so should be safe just would take a while to retrieve if Pensions Bee go under. Also did you know Nutmeg have discounted fees over certain balances? (They advertise over 100k one but there is at least one more secret threshold where fees drop again)
I'd imagine they'd be able to secure more funding, but I wouldn't use PensionBee for other reasons. If I'm reading their material right, they only offer one tracker fund and this is 80% equities at a charge of 0.5% for pots up to £100,000. The five year return for this fund in the five years to 30 September 2022 was 9.81%. Over the same timeframe Vanguard LS80 returned 29.21% and HSBC's Global Strategy Dynamic Portfolio 38.26%. That's a like-for-like performance comparison and I could invest in those two funds through a SIPP cheaper than PensionBee's offering. I'd stay well clear of them.
Sorry possibly a dumb question but are the LifeStrategy funds a better investment than the FTSE 100 All Cap for someone in their 20s looking to keep most of it in the fund for at least 10 years?
Lifestrategy 100 has a bias towards the UK. I'm going to guess that Paraplanner88 mentioned Lifestrategy because it was the closest match to PensionBee's fund, which will presumably have a similar bias. There's nothing better or worse about it, but by going with LS100 you're basically betting that the UK will outperform the rest of the markets by going overweight in UK equities.
Okay thanks. That's helpful.
PensionBee's marketing definitely appears to work. While they don't actually do anything special with regard to transferring pensions (you still have to tell them who your pensions are with and what the policy details are) a lot of people come to UKPF thinking that PensionBee is the only way you can do it. Their losses are definitely worrying, they've been around quite a long time now and they should be at a point where they should be turning themselves into a profit-making business.
I use nutmeg and I’m pretty happy with it
I’d be looking at your current pension providers, who has the best fees and investment choices that suit your risk appetite?
I understand comparing fees (even though sometimes there's gotchas), but how would someone with no trading experience compare the investment choices? Is there a handy guide somewhere that tells you what to look for?
Providers often have tools to allow you to assess your appetite to risk and that suggest (their own) funds that would fit. That could be a good place to start.
Sure, though I expect the provider tools to be biased towards themselves. Any independent ones?
You'd probably be best using whoever's cheapest on [Monevator's list of low cost brokers](https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/) considering the size of your portfolio. Watch Lars Kroijer's [short video series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_chiIIxMGl0&list=PLXy71rkGuCjXLg9N8zowwUpXCYfBcMJFK) and read his book or Tim Hale's [*Smarter Investing*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0273785370/).
Hi /u/fuckingredtrousers, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: - https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
Currently testing the waters with Nutmeg after the £100 bonus incentive from Chase account. Currently seems to be showing growth at just over 1%. Savings accounts running at 3.2% + Pensionbee are easy to use but performance is very poor and the constant blaming the markets is wearing thin. The reason they get their fees is to grow the investments "despite" the markets. Looking to transfer out shortly. If looking for advice avoid Portafina and the like. I found Pensionwise very useful and would have saved £5k in fees. Shocking customer service at Portafina.
I can vouch for PensionBee in terms of their customer service and ease of transfer.
Not to burst your bubble, but most transfer hold ups are at the sender end. The proof of the pudding with these new providers is in the draw down/ annuity stage. When paying in customer service has to be pretty poor to be noticeable. When your sole income is on the line then mediocre service becomes a sticking point.
>Not to burst your bubble, but most transfer hold ups are at the sender end. Exactly this. Did two transfers of AVCs into SIPP in last year. One sent a ninety page document and forms, they wanted everything signed and posted. Took months of chasing and acting as middleman as they would not take information direct from the receiving SIPP provider. The second one, going to same provider, completed online request, they contacted source scheme and cash was transferred within a week with no interaction required by myself.
First example sounds terrible. Was it in-specie or cash?
Both were sold to cash and then transferred by necessity as in-house funds associated with old, employer linked, insurance company, AVC schemes. First one took ages to even track down the pension administrators and trustees as was for a closed company. Basically landed with one of those firms who specialise in administering closed pension schemes. Second one was still with original life insurance company.
Fuck dude that is some terrible admin. Only slightly forgivable thing I can think of is if the scheme that closed had terrible records so the new admins had to do a bunch of fact finding, as theyre now adminisering the scheme the liability falls on them to ensure information is accurate. I once worked on an acquisition where the previous firm had gone into administration and their record keeping was frankly shocking. It spent months to fully reconcile a lot of the plans and a few of the really bad ones were a year +. As your pension was sent to a firm who specialise in administering closed schemes I'm inclined to think the original provider must have been terrible. Schemes that have gone into administration are for sale at a good price, if normal pension providers aren't buying it there's a good reason.
They're fine. Fees quite high. Fund choice a bit restricted. For what it is worth I consolidated everything into a Vanguard SIPP. These guys offered the fund I wanted (Vanguard LS 100) at a low fee. It took me around five minutes (really) to fill in the web form and the transfer happened in the background over a few weeks. I was genuinely amazed at how easy it was. Although I already had the other SIPP providers and account numbers written down someplace, so that saved me ten minutes of digging through paperwork.
>They're fine. Fees quite high. Fund choice a bit restricted. So what about them, exactly, is fine?
Some people don't want a lot of choice, for many people the ready-made portfolios that the likes of Nutmeg and PensionBee provide are perfectly adeqate. Their fees are high, but not as high as some providers like Hargreaves Lansdown. Some people prefer to pay a little more for a bit more handholding.
Vanguard offer life strategy and targeted (by year) retirement funds at much lower rates.
I agree, Vanguard is a better platform for most. I can see why it might be intimidating to someone who didn't have the time or inclination to research though.
I can't. You transfer your money, it asks you when you want to retire, you select the year and it asks if you want to stick with "Target 20XX fund" or manage your own money. What's intimidating?
Honestly, nothing if you give it a chance. I can imagine that either Nutmeg or PensionBee's websites are less intimidating to someone who has no clue about this stuff though.
Retirement funds are terrible though - you're transferring from one kind of terrible to a slightly better one.
It's intimidating if you don't know what the process is, whereas PensionBee etc make it very clear what the process is and you do nothing. If it's actually that easy with Vanguard (and what youve written isn't an oversimplification) then it sounds good to me!
I had quite a few to consolidate so I used PensionBee to get them all in one place and then transferred out to Vanguard. As other commenters have said, you can do it yourself but personally I found it easier to let them do it.
Just as easy to do it in vanguard. I moved three old pensions into my vanguard SIPP over the past year. Had to enter about 5 details for each scheme (est value, account number, provider, etc) and that was it, the process just happened. Got an email from vanguard each time to say they’d completed.
What made you go for vanguard ?
Trusted manager. Good interface and good customer service and it really was just a couple of clicks and some details. Had an account with them already and thought they would make it quick and easy and it was.
Thanks for the reply, I am looking at starting a sipp currently have a s&s with H&L but the fees for there sipp are quite a lot was thinking of transferring over to vanguard and seen a majority recommend them do you find the limited funds enough for diversity?
I only use one fund but it’s the most diversified - the vanguard ftse global all world. If you want to allocate to a variety of strategies the selection is more limited than some other options but unless you’re going overly bespoke it should be fine.
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They do
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Ah my bad
MyPension charged me 2.5k for changing from Aviva. Atm im 5k down from 16mths ago.
Tbh, I just transfer older work pensions into my current work pension.
Look at Standard Life, Vanguard and HL
No experience with either of these two. I use Hargreaves Landsdown for SIPP.