The Lemon Fool

I currently have a personal pension of just over 100K with st james place. Performance has been pretty poor and I am looking to move to another provider. I moved my ISA from SJP and picking my own funds has been very beneficial. I currently use ii for this.

Is a SIPP the way to go or should I be looking at other options?
Provider recommendations welcomed.

grumpazoid wrote:I currently have a personal pension of just over 100K with st james place. Performance has been pretty poor and I am looking to move to another provider. I moved my ISA from SJP and picking my own funds has been very beneficial. I currently use ii for this.

Is a SIPP the way to go or should I be looking at other options?
Provider recommendations welcomed.

ii have a SIPP which just charges an extra £10 per month ie £120 per year over and above their normal £9.99 monthly flat fee.
I haven't used them for a SIPP (just having an ISA and a trading account with them) but would expect that everything is handled pretty much as it is for their ISAs and trading accounts.

My SIPP is with A J Bell's Youinvest mostly for historical reasons - though now I am in drawdown there is some extra security in not having everything ISA, trading accounts and SIPP with one provider. I doubt with either ii or A J Bell I'd actually lose any money if they had problems but losing access to everything for a period would be extremely painful if everything were just with one provider which had difficulties.

https://www.ii.co.uk/our-charges

A J Bell's SIPP is cheap if you just invest directly in shares, ITs , ETFs, Gilts and bonds (0.25% capped at £10 per month). However it is a lot more expensive if you invest in funds (unit trusts, OEICs and structured products) as the charges are based on a percentage of the funds value with out a cap ( 0.25% for first £250,000, with reduced percentage rates for higher values).

https://www.youinvest.co.uk/sites/default/files/AJBYI_SIPP_charges.pdf

Thanks for the Info.

Yes having all my eggs in one basket is something to be aware of.
I mainly invest in funds so will have to have a search about for a good deal.

At this stage I am just checking a SIPP is the correct way to go.

grumpazoid wrote:I mainly invest in funds so will have to have a search about for a good deal.

At this stage I am just checking a SIPP is the correct way to go.

Well you should certainly look at other options, but as I personally only have any experience with SIPPs I'll just comment on that.

You've said that picking your own funds has been beneficial, which is a "vote" for also doing so in a SIPP. If you want to carry that practice over into a SIPP there's not a lot of "cheap" options, due to the tendency of most brokers to have ad valorem pricing for holding funds, i.e. charging you a % of the value of those holdings each year.

Of the flat fee for funds brokers, AFAIK there's just Interactive Investor, IWeb/Halifax and ShareDeal Active, and IWeb is actually Halifax with a different skin on; both are part of the Lloyds banking group.

Personally, I have dealing accounts and ISAs with Interactive Investor and IWeb, and my SIPP with IWeb. I don't know anything about ShareDeal Active.

Monevator is a good source for quick broker comparisons. Take a look at:

https://monevator.com/find-the-best-online-broker/
https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
https://monevator.com/cheapest-pension-diy/

Of the ad valorem brokers the cheapest is Vanguard at 0.15%pa, which at £150pa for £100K may be competitive for you considering that everything else is free with them ... but, of course, you can only buy hold Vanguard products (ETFs/funds) with them, which is kinda restrictive.

Thanks for the replies.

I will check out monevator. It has been more than 6 years with SJP so no worries there transferring out.
Agree that SJP is not a good return. It took me far too many years to realise. Having picked my own funds with ii I have not looked back.

So it seems that I have a choice of 1)go with a SIPP and manage myself or 2) use another pension provider.
Option 1 seems like they way providing fees are not prohibitive.

How much you trade and the fee structure might also be worth considering. I make 1 or 2 trades a year at most in my SIPP so moved from ii to Hargreaves Lansdown as the overall cost was less as I don't trade enough to use the one free trade per month. Others went the other way as H-L are seen as expensive. I've had no issues with the customer service from either.

vagrantbrain wrote:How much you trade and the fee structure might also be worth considering. I make 1 or 2 trades a year at most in my SIPP so moved from ii to Hargreaves Lansdown as the overall cost was less as I don't trade enough to use the one free trade per month. Others went the other way as H-L are seen as expensive. I've had no issues with the customer service from either.

I use HL for my Sipp and no probs. 16.66 per month flat fee. Periodically they have a cash incentive to move to them.
The only point to look at is charges for funds. I never ever use funds but prefer ITs and ETFs where there are no platform fees.

Unless you have access to a low cost pension as part of your job, it's unlikely that you'll find a personal pension that's as cheap to run as a SIPP. If you're still employed, it could be worth looking to see if your employer provides a cost competitive scheme and consider transferring to that.

My employer does have LGPS. I pay into this but the time has expired to transfer in any existing funds. Maybe a big mistake.