Most of the products on sale from insurance companies use an underlying index fund from a specialist fund manager and then they add on their marketing costs.
Depending on your circumstances you might be better off buying the underlying fund directly through a self directed pension.
For example, my pension trustee charges me 0.25%pa and I can buy index funds with annual fees of .2% or .3%pa typically.
However, under a commission based service, advice and product costs are bundled together and the total costs are opaque including things such as override commissions which are not disclosed to clients. Additional costs are paid whether ongoing advice or service is being provided or not.
How could one possibly disclose the monetary amount of all commission payments in advance to a client, when by definition, you do not know how much it is going to be and it depends on how much business is written with a particular company? This is the least transparent payment a broker receives and this is why they are illegal in the UK.
The Zurich TopTech 100 fund tracks the NASDAQ 100 via an ETF for 1% Annual Management Charge
Are there any cheaper index tracking options?
Or what other index trackers are available for same rate?
This seems simple to me and shouldn't need all the details regarding type of pension etc to answer it.
Also wouldn't this listing also apply to investors who just simply want to put their spare cash into some passively managed ETF Index Trackers and avoid fees, commissions etc.
What sort of pension product do you need? Occupational Pension Scheme (a.k.a. Company pension, Directors' pension or Executive Pension), Personal Pension (a.k.a. RAC) or PRSA?
If you don't know the answer, what type of employment are you in - self-employed, company director or PAYE employee (not a director)?
On one of the pages it detailed how much of the lump sum was attributable to Intermediary/Sales remuneration. It amounted to about 7% of my lump sum.