Poorly performing pension

[Dibblydoodahdah]

I have a self-invested pension with Aviva. In 2021 it had £58,000 in it. It now has £54,000. I haven’t added anything to it during that time (because I have two other pensions, one from my previous employer and one from my current employer). I’m concerned that it is underperforming. Should I transfer to a new provider altogether or stick with Aviva but change the funds?

In my humble opinion, you can't fix this, except by waiting for it to improve.

You need more information like what it is invested in and what goals you have and whether the fees are what is eroding the performance or a combination. There is no simple answer

The pension doesn’t perform, the investments within it do.
If you are bond heavy, that’s probably what’s caused the drop, they have done exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to this last two years.
What funds are you invested in?

For example, a global mixed asset fund with 40% equities and 60% bonds will have done much worse than 100% equities.
If you are UK biased, that has also hit performance.
A £4k drop isn’t actually that bad, it’s less than 10%, it’s normal to have drops of 25%+ during an economic cycle.
You can’t go far wrong with a Global tracker, for the long term you need to be in at least 80% equities.

@BorgQueen thanks, I have looked in more detail at the funds (which were recommended by an IFA) and they haven’t grown since 2017. I am going to look at changing the funds but my current pension provider only allows this by telephone so I’m going to transfer to a provider that I can manage online.

No growth since 2017?
Should have bounced back to +20% at least during 2020.
I’m equities heavy and I’ve just pulled a chart of all our funds in our 3 Sipps.

The last 12 months :

Last 3 years :

Last 5 years :

With the benefit of hindsight, We should have stuck everything in Fundsmith , it’s up 255% over the last 10 years! Eggs and baskets come to mind though.

VLS 80 has been the ‘worst’ performer over the decade and even that has averaged 9% a year growth.

Over the last 5 years the balance shifts but 100% equity funds have always won.
You might wonder why we have 2 World index funds but one includes emerging markets and one doesn’t.

We’ve had a few years of extreme volatility. Most pension funds have fallen in value to some extent. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

No, ‘most pension funds’ most definitely haven’t fallen in value in 5 years. Anything with a globally diversified, equity heavy fund has grown very well considering.

Only bond heavy ‘lifestyling’ funds with under 40% equities or with a UK bias haven’t grown.
Even this year, things are on the up in general, even though markets are yo-yoing up and down daily / weekly.
Even my ‘managed volatility’ ‘safer’ fund is up 2.58% this year.

Thanks @BorgQueen. I can’t actually get into my pension now online to check the funds (another reason I’m thinking about moving away from Aviva as the online access is very unreliable) but last time I looked it was very similar to what I had I had in there in 2017.