MSE News: Automatic pension enrolment

A question about : MSE News: Automatic pension enrolment

From Monday, up to 11 million workers will be automatically enrolled into workplace pensions ...

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Automatic pension enrolment - what it means for you

Best answers:

• I welcome this scheme, we should all make provison for our retirement although I think the baby boomers should contribute more now as they are drawing final salary pensions that they never properly financed.
• We should really do a long term documentary, tracking the bright eyed and bushy tailed pension savers, like the Seven Up! documentary, tracing the lives of children every seven years.
  Volunteers just has to promise to keep all pension statements.
  Obviously there will be multiple pension plans, but hopefully it won't be too complicated.
  I think we keep going until they pass away, so we can see how the pension provision was adequate or not.
  We should have a control group, who don't save initially.
• I detest this scheme. It is forcing people to save the governments way. If the pension age is increasing anyway then you retirement pot may not even be accessed. These schemes serve only to keep the financial sector propped up, nothing more.
• If you are close to retirement age is it worth being in this scheme? My dh has less than five years left before he retires.
• So I have to put in a min of 0.8% of my annual salary? What if I can't afford that?
• Put in 0.8%, get 1.2% free from employer & from tax-man, lose ~ 1% in annual "management" fees (from my employers' page on costs for pensions).
  Sorry mr government man, I will keep the 0.8% and invest it into a nice ISA and play the savings account switching game every year or so to maintain a good interest rate. At least if something happens I've got the money to redraw, and I'm not tied down into having money locked away into a pension pot from various employers if I decide to change employers.
  At least I've got to April next year to decide as that's when it's happening for the company I'm currently at
• I currently work for a company who will enroll you in a "stakeholder" scheme "if you want", but will not pay anything into it. At a recent meeting, I asked about the new NEST scheme, & was told they were going to wait until the last possible moment to start it, & that they could not guarantee that you will be able to transfer the stakeholder funds without charge. So, I cannot get excited about this yet, & as I am on a tight budget (with a DMP), I am a bit concerned about affordability.
  Anyone know if any preserved pensions can be transferred into NEST - I have one that will pay about a fiver a year on retirement....
• An article in Sunday Times Money yesterday high-lighted the problem of old pension policies going moldy because of poor growth and high charges. To add insult to injury, they penalise you if you try to transfer out. The units and bonuses suddenly evaporate because they stole the money years ago, so your statements are just works of fiction. Transferring out crystalises the actual state of your account and calls their bluff.
  I have money trapped in pensions that are worth less than when I (and the employer, and the HMRC) put the money in, due to inflation, zero growth and charges. They will be worth even less when I retire. The urgent action that I require is to let me GET THE MONEY OUT. It will be sweet if we could force the pension provider into paying put what the annual statement claim the policy is worth, to teach them about lying and ruining people's lives through false hope.
• That story was focusing a lot on the relatively few initial units that carry all of the commission. Most people who pay in regularly for years won't have those units making up most of their pot.
  I agree about the importance of being able to get the money out. It's a vital piece of market forces based protection for pension holders.
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19760421
  Dear God, we're doomed.