Pension lumps - set to a specific retirement age??

D

Deano

Registered User
Messages
123
I have three lums sums with different providers (Zurich, Irish Life and New Ireland) and these were from previous employments. I am not paying into these anymore but they will obviously continue to grow over time. They all came from DC schemes.

I've since started a new job and will be paying into a fourth fund (New Ireland) but I imagine that I'd have the option to migrate my previous NI lump into this.

The question I have is around the retirement age\dates. When I log into my accounts, both the Zurich and Irish life lumps have my retirement age 'set' to 65 while the New Ireland has it at 60. I'm curently 45 and an aiming to retire at 60, mainly because of my wifes excellent DB pension.

Can these set dates simply be ignored or do they have any significance? Should I look to have them changed if necessary? I'm simply looking at these the same as savings deposits and come the time I can simply buy annunity, ARF, etc.?

Thanks!
 
If the four pots all relate to four different employments, then you can retire any one of them at any time you choose from age 50 onwards, as long as you're no longer in the employment of any of the employers and have no connection with the companies any more.

Some pension contracts and funds have specific clauses in them that offer bonuses for staying to the agreed retirement age or penalties if you don't. The only way to find this out is to ask Zurich / Irish Life / New Ireland / scheme brokers if these apply to your particular pots.

While you're at it, find out what the charges are on each pot. If they're too high you could look into transferring any of them into Personal Personal Retirement Bonds / Buy Out Bonds with lower charges.

Regards,

Liam
https://ferga.com/
 
Thanls for the info Liam. I did hear back from Irish Life and they are charging 0.75% for thier fund. Does this seem excessive (my impression is that it's pretty standard??).

Have not heard back from Zurich yet...
 
OK, so some further information. Firstly, New Ireland charge 0.95% for their fund.

Zurich charge 0.75% for their fund, but there is added complexity regarding the retirement age that I'm not sure I understand. Here is the response I received -

I can confirm there is a 0.75% annual management fee on your policy, and there is also an early encashment charge which applies within the first 5 years.

An early encashment charge means if you were to mature the policy or transfer to a different company then there would be extra penalties in the first 5 years.

This is the breakdown in the first 5 years.

Year 1: 5.00 %
Year 2: 4.00 %
Year 3: 3.00 %
Year 4: 2.00 %
Year 5: 1.00 %

The retirement age selected on your policy does not mean you have to wait until this date , this age is selected at the inception of the policy however Revenue legislation dictates that one can mature this type of policy from 50 as you have left the employment of the company.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top