Every year one of the main UK financial publications produces a pension survey; it’s a whole of market thing where all of the main pension providers submit a return.
It provides a snapshot of actual investment returns over a range of timescales.
Effectively it shows in real terms, if you did x you would end up with y. I enjoy reading it, because I am geek when it comes to pensions and the truth around these things.
If now you are wondering why this survey is important I’ll explain. See, these pension plans which are so damn complicated that few understand are just one of the problems you face when considering making a plan for the future, but more on that in a bit.
Now, if you invested £200 per month (ignoring tax relief for the moment) you could have ended up with any of the following results.
| Best | Worst | |
| 5 years | £17,811 | £8,885 |
| 10 years | £51,367 | £24,000 |
| 20 years | £142,728 | £70,275 |
What’s brilliant about these figures is that it show up in clear detail why your choice of pension provider is important, but also why the choice of fund is important. Pensions have gone through great change in recent years, however if your plan is start drawing down on an investment at some point, close to your retirement – very few of the plans in the marketplace would have done much for you.
Based on my maths it would seem that the pension provider, and the tax man does nearly as good as you via this kind of pension and you take all of the risk.
The world of pensions has moved on substantially in the last five years and in my experience most financial advisers have not. When you are ready to look carefully at making a solid plan for your business and your retirement get in touch with me over at www.thefinancezone.co.uk/contact you’ll be pleased you did. I’ll even give you thirty minutes at no charge – just don’t tell everyone.