January is traditionally the time for making New Year resolutions. One resolution I would recommend you make for 2020 is to review your existing retirement plans with a qualified pension adviser.
Because retirement plans are generally for the long term – 25 to 40 years in most cases, a regular review is very important.
This is because much changes as we go through our life cycle and a pension review allows you to take stock of your current situation and the changes that have occurred to it since your last review. A review allows you to look at how your current pension arrangements have fared and lets you see if the plan is performing as well as you had hoped. You can decide to change the investment strategy, if that is considered necessary or desirable. You can assess if the current premiums are sufficient to meet your pension income goal or if you need to increase regular payments or simply add a single pension contribution.
We all lead very busy lives and don’t seem to have the time to look at our retirement plans. Most of us never read our annual report and even fewer of us bother to keep track of our plans online. We therefore don’t know if we are on track with our expected retirement income.
Most people tell us they do not know what type of funds their pension is invested in and they also are unaware that they may be able to arrange a Pension Term Insurance policy and claim back income tax relief on the premiums payable.
Because we all have different expectations of how our lives will be at retirement, a review of your retirement plans is designed to be as individual as you are. At a pension review meeting, you can discuss all aspects of your plan; you will receive a personalised report outlining what was discussed, the details of all recommendations made and what was agreed.
Because regular pension reviews are free of charge, you have only one decision to make – when can I arrange a pension review meeting?