It has taken me six months, but I have finally (almost) managed to move all my pensions into a single provider.
Warning: This is not investment or pension advice. It is the culmination of learnings from one individual (me) in trying to navigate the choking bureaucracy of the pension workspace.
My experience
I had four separate workplace pensions. I couldn’t easily track them. Some were very small. All came with reams of paperwork. More than anything, what I feared was losing one – forgetting about it, losing access, not being able to find it etc., especially as pension providers sometimes change names, get acquired or transferred. So, I decided I needed to put everything in one place. Not necessarily in one investment, but with one provider. I welcome thoughts from experts as to whether I ought to be diversifying my pension providers, but for now I just wanted the security of knowing I’ve got everything in one place.
It was hard, but I can now see everything in one place, with one login. I can make allocation decisions into investment funds. And I don’t have to worry about losing a pension. But boy was it hard.
How I did it
1) I had to find all of my pensions first. And that’s not easy. Digging back through old paperwork, signing up for apps, getting online access.
2) I got my pension details and logged in. One very well-known provider has a policy of disabling your password every three months. I thought I was going mad. I kept re-setting my password, saving it, and then wondering why I couldn’t login again. Turns out “for security reasons” they like to lock you out once a quarter. Oh, and their online password reset function doesn’t work, so you have to call them and wait for half an hour while they deal with “unprecedented volumes” to get it re-set.
3) I requested transfer out forms and a transfer out quote, from the pension providers I wanted to leave.
4) I requested transfer in forms, from the pension provider that has annoyed me least, doesn’t disable your password, and doesn’t charge extortionate investment management fees.
5) I filled in the forms. They ask questions such as “Is the receiving pension plan a SSAS?” Who knows? And “Please provide the address and postcode of the receiving pension provider”. I googled their address and filled it in.
6) I had my forms returned because I had filled in the PDF in Word and added my signature electronically. They insisted on a wet signature. I wrote them a full handwritten letter (the first I’ve written in probably decades), went the post office and posted it off.
7) That wasn’t enough. I got sent “Additional information forms” which asked questions like “Is the receiving scheme an occupational pension scheme?” and “Is the receiving scheme a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme?”. Also to be filled in in pen and sent back.
8) One pension provider had my pension in two separate pots. They processed one of the pensions, but not the other, which meant I had to go back to step 3 for the other part and start all over again. But with a new login and password.
As it stands, I’m waiting for this last pension to come across.
I’m a fairly finance-literate person. This process was horrendous. How much more difficult would it be for someone less able? The pension industry needs to take a hard look at itself and think about its user experience. It must be possible to make it better than this.
