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standard Life stakeholder

Hi all

I have made some bad choices with pensions in the past, and am trying to avoid doing the same in the future. Would anyone be able to give me some general tips?

I have some money tied up with Equitable life, and for the last few years have been paying in to Scottish Life (I'm lead to believe that the pension isn't performing too well)

My company has signed up to the standard life stake holder pension, and an independent advisor has been in telling us that its performing well and in his opinion looks as though its a good bet for the future.

I did a little research and according to the Guardian (and others) , Standard life seems a bit shaky, I'm sure I read parallels drawn with Equitable life, which concerns me more than a little....

I should say that I am a pension idiot, and I'm dreading loosing even more money. So I guess what I'm asking is in the broadest terms possible, is a standard life stake holder a SAFE investment (SAFE being the word, I would prefer to invest in something solid but lower profits, rather than high profits but have nothing at all at the end) ?

Any thoughts would be welcome

many thanks in advance

P.s. I know it sounds cynical but are the any truly independent companies offering advice, I would happily pay for a session if I thought they would give me unbiased information. The guy advising our company seems clued up and quite decent, he also says that him or his company have no ties with standard life, but still, twice bitten, third time very careful!!!

Reply to
aaj
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The safety of a pension is related to the fund you're in, not the company providing the pension - unless it's with-profits when this could be true (Equitable Life). When your advisor says it's doing well, which fund does he mean? Some will do better than others at different times. Often the choice of a pension is a question of which fund you like and which provider has the best of thast breed - depending on how you define 'best'.

Rob Graham

Reply to
Robin Graham

In message , aaj writes

Hmm, thats interesting. Can you point us to that source?

Reply to
john boyle

I have posted a couple of links, they are not all to do with pensions, but a few are.

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and this one from january

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I should point out that I have nothing at all against Standard Life, and I don't necessarily believe what the papers say, but in the list of articles there was nothing particularly positive.

All I'm trying to ascertain is if there are any fundamental problems with a standard life stakeholder pension, and is a safe bet for me to pay into for the next 30 years? What I'm really trying to avoid is another advisor coming, in another 4 years telling me that not only were my first 2 choices for pensions bad but so was this one.

thanks for the replies so far.

Reply to
aaj

It depends upon the fund that your money is invested in within the stakeholder 'wrapper'. With profits policies, or any variation on, are affected by the insurance companies profitability. Other funds such as Unit Trusts, Investment Trusts, OEICs are not. As the Trust bit of the name suggests, they are a separate entity.

I see no reason why not, but as with any investment, review every 5 years.

My bet for a 30 year investment is a high income investment trust. Even better would be an exchange traded fund investing in the FTSE 350 High Yield index. I think there was talk of one being launched.

Daytona

Reply to
Daytona

Many thanks for all the replies, I will take some time out and have a think...

cheers

Reply to
aaj

"Daytona" wrote

Only if the With Profits fund holds shares in the life company itself!

"Daytona" wrote

Unless they too, hold shares in the Life company.

"Daytona" wrote

As are With Profits Life Funds.

Reply to
Tim

In message , Tim writes

But we are talking about a Mutual here arent we? And Proprietary With Profit funds can not hold their own shares to any great degree.

BUT Standard Life are a MUTUAL and dont issue shares (yet).

Not with a Mutual they aren't.

Reply to
john boyle

"john boyle" wrote

Aha. Apologies - I thought Daytona was talking more generally when he said: "With profits policies, or any variation on, are affected by the insurance companies profitability. Other funds such as Unit Trusts, Investment Trusts, OEICs are not."

"john boyle" wrote

Agreed.

Reply to
Tim

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