How to Invest Frozen Company Pensions & Personal Pensions for a Better Return.

During every bodies working life is offered an opportunity to enjoy a fringe benefit called a Company Pension offered by an employer as an incentive to maintain employee loyalty While others have a great idea at a time of modest personal prosperity to make provision through a Private Personal Pension for income for later life. During the journey of having a job or business that travels through a roll-a-coaster economy such as Britain's in every decade many people experience employment and financial difficulties and in the process  accumulate pension policies that through the lack of funding become frozen.

In our rush to survive and avoid the rigours of unemployment most get a new job and sometimes whatever job is offered is accepted to overcome the stresses and strains of paying the household bills and mortgage on the family home. Then the original fringe benefit of having a company pension is put on the back-burner and the personal pension is put on hold until better times permit constructive personal financing for a future retirement. For most people who gradually lose track of pensions legislation also lose sight of the potential gold mine that has recently been made available through coherent regulation of pension providers by US regulators and the UK's Financial Services Association, F.S.A..

To achieve a specific health check of a pension requires contact with an expert advisor; but that is the biggest obstacle because nobody wants the risk and hassle of being harangued by a high pressure smooth talking sales person. But meeting-up with the right sort of advisor who has a no-strings-attached approach is what most of us want. So here are some notes and pointers to help get through the fogging expressed as jargon that surrounds what we all want and desire to achieve,namely a pension that pays every month during retirement and delivers the highest annual yield while it is growing before retirement.

The Local Bank- Surprisingly for many a Banks Adviser is one of the most restricted types of financial adviser because of their limited product range. However they are also one of the public's most trusted because of the strong brand name nature of the institution. They only have access to the banks product lines or they may have a special arrangement with a pension company which they have brand-named with the banks name. In the vast majority of cases banks who sell insurance and pensions do so because they have access to a market within a market through their own customers.

Their products are often good quality and dependable but they are sold at a premium because they are themselves often the third-party.

Accountants- The normal remit for an accountant is to offer and implement advise about the company: pay-roll, book-keeping and tax benefits for various investment strategies. An accountant cannot effectively advise you about pensions, investments, savings, mortgages or estate protection because they do not have access to the products and they are not qualified by the Financial Services Authority, (F.S.A.), to sell them.

Financial Advisor's- This source of advice often emanates from specialized knowledge about pension and financial products designed by the major industry brand names which they have on a panel giving them a range of products and companies which forms their own business model. All too frequently this strategy excludes the smaller pension providers who may offer higher yielding strategies. This is because the major brand-names will offer the advisor a better return in the form of commissions in return for high numbers of qualified sales referrals/ customers.

Independent Financial Advisor's- The I.F.A.'s have a broader knowledge about pensions because they have access to the entire market with no apparent strings attached; they can search through every product available. But they will usually return to the prospective customer with a major brand-name because they offer the I.F.A the best source of income.

The F.S.A. advise people to have their financial products reviewed by an qualified advisor who has directly related expertise about the topic of interest. A qualified Independent Financial Advisor pays the F.SA. to be regulated and has to follow a strict code of conduct to advise and show the most beneficial products that manage your individual circumstances. The product is selected from the equivalent of a money supermarket; giving a customer the best possible guided choice.

If you have had a company pension scheme that is not based on a final salary or a frozen personal pension then it is worthwhile to get an expert to investigate and to offer an unbiased opinion about how that fund can be invested to achieve a much larger and therefore more useful retirement fund value. Because there are millions of frozen pensions that lost their profits when a few high street brand names went out of business; for example the Pearl Group lost 4 million policies in the year 2001, those policies were bought by the Australian head quartered Henderson Group PLC. Hendersons have since only paid an annual yield of 2% which is much below current market expectations. Most other pension companies have been paying 5-7% as an annual growth rate; but this practice is now about to change because of changes made by the F.SA. That is creating a level playing field and a more competitive market for all the pension providers that is promising to now pay 12-15% annual growth rates with minimal or no penalty costs for moving or transferring a frozen pension fund. Therefore by simply moving your frozen pension to a more profitable scheme you can benefit from a higher return without having to make any more monthly contributions. The new hybrid pension advisor's waiver their commission charges making the operation completely free and without obligation.

How do Independent Pension Advisor's make money if it's free-of-charge?.

It is no longer necessary to pay sales commissions on something that you already own; the advisor gets paid by the new pension provider who will invest your frozen pension to yield a 12-15% return every year and additional profits made actually pay the original advisor and the running costs of the pension company. Your pension will be one of millions of other pensions making profits year-on-year; therefore everyone benefits from the process and it costs you nothing except time.

Benefits of Using an Independent Pensions Advisor.

• Advisor's have to take examinations frequently to maintain their qualifications, to stay up-to-date and to remain an expert in the field.
  
• Finding out if your pension is on target as the years slip by is an important step to maximising the investment return.
  
• SIPPS & Private Pensions can provide a free cash lump sum from the age of fifty for many schemes and others the age is 55.
  
• Checking the performance history of a fund is most especially important if a corporate providerget some bad press.
  
• If your pension is not a final salary scheme and worth more than $5000 an IFA is a valuable source of help.
  
• For the families Financial Estate Protection to safeguard property and current investments.
  
• Learning about new opportunities that arise from changes to regulations and legislation is a very important safeguard to discover before retirement, then it's not too late to change direction.