Consolidating pensions

[TakeNoTwitsGiveNoDucks]

Is this a good idea or not? I have three pensions. One is bigger than the others, but none are massive. DH thinks I need to consolidate them "you need to sort that out".

I am 39 and not planning to retire for the next thirty years or so, so I don't see why this needs to be sorted with any urgency?

I'd consider consolidation after comparing their fees.& performance and how easy it is to see what they're doing, assuming they're all SIPP type.

Personally I'd not want 6 or 7 or more pension arrangements by retirement age assuming you don't stay in the same job forevermore, I'd prefer them to be consolidated / kept to a minimum when drawing an income, again if SIPPs, purely for simplicity.

If any are final salary you're likely to require an IFA to advise you before taking any action.

Thank you, that's helpful

I consolidated two smallish pensions on the advice of a financial advisor as one in particular was not performing well. I moved them to a different provider and over eight to ten years, they increased dramatically to make a decent sized pot.

I've worked in pensions for 20 years. It's worth doing if, say, one of them has vastly different fees - if you save 0.5% a year for 30 years it'll make a difference. Likewise if some of the funds are total dogs it might be worth moving, but past performance is no guide to future returns so that's a bit of a coin toss.

I’d be asking my husband why.
If he had a good reason (and there are good reasons that might apply) - then happy days, you learned something from him.
If he said, “because” then I’d tell him to keep his patronising beak out of my finances!

Good reason I had to do it: one of mine offered a lower annual fee for balances over £50K, so I could gain from consolidation.

Good reason I had not to do it: that same lower fee pension has a minimum monthly payment, and I wanted to keep live one that had no minimums.

So I consolidated 3 into 1, and kept 1 separate.

All without some man sticking his oar in and leaving without any actual reason, which is presumably the case or you wouldn’t have posted 🤷🏻‍♀️

Speak to a pension expert so you understand fully the implications. I have 4 pensions - company A I have 18 years in a defined benefit (DB) and when their DB scheme closed 6 years in a defined contribution (DC), and company B I have 2 DC pension (one 10 years in my ongoing pension fund that employer also contributes to, the other AVCs that I started recently with different terms)

Advice was not to combine the DC because of how the 25% lump sum could work with the company A pensions (the terms mean I can take most of my 25% lump sum from their DC without impacting the much better DB).

Also the two DC at company B could be combined but only into the newer one that has less favourable terms for the stage I am at in pensions (if I was younger combining would make more sense as over long term returns would be better), so better to keep separate for now, but might revisit if combining just before retirement would make administration easier. In hindsight wish I had started AVCs earlier, even if it was a tiny amount each month to begin with, just so they were in the same/better scheme.