Pension & Retirement Planning

You may have existing pension plans in place such as a company or a personal pension.Perhaps you're just starting to save ready for retirement or retired already.Whatever your situation,we can work with you to create a retirement plan just for you.

Retirement is a time to turn all those dreams into reality, so by preparing an appropriate financial plan that is tailor-made for you, this will really help you reach your goals. There are so many ways now to save for retirement and how much you invest can make a fundamental difference to how much freedom you have later on. 

Pensions are, of course, designed to enable you to save sufficient money to live comfortably after you have retired from work. There are many different 'tools' used to save for retirement and the taxation and investment elements of pensions can often appear baffling. We specialise in explaining, recommending and monitoring pensions for you. Below are the most common sources of pension to fund for your retirement:

  Basic State Pension - for people who have paid sufficient National Insurance contributions while at work or have been credited with enough contributions.

 Additional State Pension - this is now called the State Second Pension (S2P). Before 6 April 2002, it was known as SERPS (State Earnings Related Pension Scheme). From 6 April 2002, SERPS was reformed to provide a more generous additional State Pension for low and moderate earners, carers and people with a long term illness or disability.  State Second Pension is based upon earnings on which standard rate Class 1 National Insurance contributions are paid or treated as  having been paid. Additional State Pension is not available in respect of self-employed income.

  Occupational Pension (through an employer pensions scheme) - if your employer operates a pensions scheme, it's usually a good idea to find out about the benefits of the scheme. Depending on the scheme details, you should consider possibly joining the scheme.

  Personal Pensions Scheme (including Stakeholder schemes) - open to nearly everyone and especially useful if you are self-employed or your employer doesn't run a company scheme.

State Pensions may not produce the same level of income that you will have been accustomed to whilst working. The full Basic State Pension is only £95.25 per week (2009/10) for a single person (though you would be able to claim means-tested state benefits if that was your only income). It's important to start thinking early about how best to build up an additional retirement fund. You're never too young to start a pension - the longer you leave it the more you will have to pay in to build up a decent fund in later life.

Please see the related documents for more information on Pensions and Retirement Planning:

Personal & Stakeholder Pensions

Company Pensions

Advanced Pensions & Simplification

When you retire, you want to be sure that you have sufficient income to make the most of these years. Talk to us at Vision about ways of making sure your income lasts the whole of your retirement including all of your options.

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