While you may need regulated financial advice when transferring a pension pot, there are also free guidance services available to help you make informed decisions.
Guidance on combining your pensions
If you’re looking for impartial guidance around combining your pension pots, here are some resources that could help.
MoneyHelper and Pension Wise
The government’s MoneyHelper service gives free and impartial guidance to help make your money and pension choices clearer – including combining pensions.
If you’re over 50, Pension Wise, a service from MoneyHelper, is a free and impartial government service offering guidance to help you make an informed decision about taking money from your pension pots. This service is available to book online at MoneyHelper, or by phone on 0800 138 3944.
Lost track of your old pensions?
If you think you may have lost track of old pensions, contact the Pension Tracing Service. This is a free service which searches a database of more than 200,000 pension schemes to try and find the contact details you need.
Aegon Assist
If you have an Aegon pension, Aegon Assist can help if you don't have an adviser and need guidance while thinking about combining your pension pots. They aren’t able to give you financial advice but they can give you information to help you make your own decisions.
Do you need financial advice to combine pensions?
Combining your pension pots is a big decision and there are a lot of things to consider. If you’ve looked at the free sources of guidance and you’re still not sure if combining pension pots is best for you, we recommend you speak to a financial adviser. They can talk through your options for combining pension pots as they’re qualified to provide regulated and tailored advice to help you make financial decisions.
While you may not need advice to combine pensions in most cases, there are circumstances where you should speak to an adviser first.
You must speak to a financial adviser if:
- You have a defined benefit pension, also known as a final salary pension, worth more than £30,000. If you transfer money from a defined-benefit scheme to a defined-contribution scheme, it’s an irreversible decision – so you can’t change your mind later.
- You could lose important ‘safeguarded benefits’, which are benefits other than money purchase benefits and cash balance benefits.
- Your pension products with other providers include certain protection insurance benefits, such as an income for your financial dependants after you die.
An adviser may charge you for advice. If you don't have a financial adviser, you can find the right one for you with MoneyHelper.
