Self invested pensions

Self invested pensions (also known as self invested personal pensions or SIPPs, SSAS or member directed pension plans) enable you to have greater control over the investment strategy of your pension fund.

On this page we will refer to all self invested pensions, member directed pensions, small self administered schemes and self invested personal pensions as SIPPs.

Expert Financial Solutions Ltd Chartered Financial Planners and independent financial advisers advise many high earners and high net worth clients on their pension and retirement savings. Our highly qualified and professional financial planners are pension experts and have the highest level of pension qualifications including G60 advanced financial planning certificate pensions, and AF3 advanced diploma in financial planning pensions.

Expert Financial Solutions Ltd offer specialist SIPP advice and can advice on your SIPP investment strategy. We can source low cost SIPPs, simple SIPPs and bespoke SIPPs with specialist services such as property purchase or loan facilities.

Expert’s highly qualified and experienced pension advisers offer advice on SIPP investments using an active investment strategy, a passive investment strategy (using Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs), a blend of active and passive, or the investment management may be contracted out to a discretionary fund manager (DFM).

The most popular of the range of permissible investments for SIPPs include: -

Collective investments such as unit trusts and open ended investment companies (OEICs) and ETFs.
Cash deposits.
Gilts and corporate bonds.
Commercial property including shops, offices, industrial units.
Stocks and shares either held directly within the pension fund or managed by a discretionary fund manager.

Most clients will use a SIPP to receive transfers from other pension plans, known as consolidation. Clients do this for a number of reasons perhaps to simplify pension funds by only having one SIPP instead of numerous personal and stakeholder pensions. Consolidation of pension plans to a SIPP can also help to ease the administrative burden perhaps because your pension provider has been taken over or merged several times and administration standards have slipped.

SIPPs are also useful for achieving a coordinated investment strategy allowing you to take advantage of portfolio optimisation techniques and the latest investment trends.

A SIPP may also be suitable for receiving pension credit rights arising from pension sharing orders on divorce or cessation of a civil partnership.

SIPPs are more suited to larger pension funds particularly when you are thinking about taking your retirement benefits perhaps by way of an unsecured pension (pension fund withdrawal or income withdrawal) arrangement or because you wish to control what benefits are taken from your fund and when they are taken.

Whatever the reason for using a SIPP, you will find transparency of charges, a greater choice of investment funds (than a traditional insurance company model) and control over asset allocation and investment timing so as to enable the creation of a coordinated investment strategy aligned to your risk profile and requirements.

Expert Financial Solutions Ltd use sophisticated investment risk profiling software and investment analysis tools that allow us to identify where your pension fund is currently invested, whether it is attaining expected returns, and whether it is suited to your requirements and risk profile. We can analyse the ‘efficient frontier’ for your risk profile and demonstrate the benefits of a diversified and well managed model investment portfolio for your pension fund.

SIPPs are generally more flexible than traditional insurance company products in relation to retirement income options. SIPPs can also therefore be suitable for clients who do not wish to purchase an annuity at or near to retirement age, perhaps because one or more of the following applies: -

Annuity rates represent poor value and this may improve in future.
You wish to continue investment exposure in your chosen funds.
You have a distrust of the annuity system.
You or your spouse or civil partner is in poor health and so you wish to postpone a decision about annuity purchase.
A spouse or civil partner is much younger than you making a joint life annuity seem poor value.
You wish to take tax-free cash from your pension fund but do not wish to take an income.
You do not wish to purchase an annuity at age 75 but wish to continue with alternatively secured pension.

Expert Financial Solutions Ltd offers advice on retirement income options including advice on annuities, advice on pension fund withdrawal, advice on income drawdown, advice on unsecured pension, advice on third way annuities, and advice on phased retirement.

For more information or to arrange a no cost initial meeting to discuss your requirements please contact us.

September 2009

Expert Financial Solutions Ltd chartered financial planners and independent financial advisers IFA financial planners based in Witney, Oxford, Oxfordshire. We provide independent financial advice, pension advice, investment advice, retirement advice, annuity advice, SIPP advice pension drawdown advice, pension transfer advice, wealth management and pensions on divorce advice in Oxford, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire, Abingdon, Banbury, Bampton, Bicester, Burford, Chipping Norton, Cheltenham, Cirencester, the Cotswolds, Henley on Thames, Kidlington, Lechlade, Oxford, Wantage, Witney and Woodstock. Pension specialists, retirement planning specialists, pension transfer specialists, pension annuities, specialist pension advisers, investment advisers, and inheritance tax IHT mitigation and trust investment. Chartered Financial Planner. Oxfordshire's only Resolution qualified and Resolution accredited IFA for pensions on divorce and financial neutral for collaborative divorce.