When talking about pensions, there are a few things that you need to know. In simple terms, a pension provides income to live on in retirement. There are state benefit schemes offering limited financial support for your old age, and a number of other private schemes enabling you to build a larger fund for the future. To avoid a paltry income in retirement it is in everybody’s best interest to save more for it.

Our pension tracing service is here to help you locate or trace any pensions that you may have lost or misplaced. We operate a simple 5 step process that we feel takes the frustration out of doing this yourself. Not only do we locate your pension and give you the information, one of our highly trained financial adviser’s will also conduct a free initial review and explain your pension/s in detail in a way that you will understand.

The value of pensions and the income they produce can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invested.

There are a number of types of pension schemes including group or occupational pensions, personal pensions, the state pension and SERPS

Below is a summary of the different type of pensions but if you would like more information, our Pension Tracing Service includes our FREE Pension Review Line for you to call.

Although an entitlement for most people, the amount received from the basic state pension will depend on the amount of national insurance contributions paid.

On 6 April 2002, the State Second Pension (S2P), introduced by the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000 replaced the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS).

Personal pensions, introduced on 1 July 1988, originally aimed to give people who were not part of a company pension scheme their own portable pension, designed on a money purchase basis although since April 2001 certain individuals who are members of company pension schemes can also take out personal pensions.

Employers can set up occupational pension schemes for their employees. Public sector schemes typically offer pension accrual of 1/80th of final remuneration for each year of service up to a maximum of 40 years plus a tax free lump sum of up to 1.5 x final remuneration.

Tax treatment varies according to individual circumstances and is subject to change.

Private sector schemes can be either final salary schemes known as defined benefit schemes or money purchase schemes known as defined contribution schemes.

From April 6th 2006 Government proposals for pension simplification came into effect. This has lead to many new opportunities for people to invest their savings for the long term with greater flexibility when it comes to retirement and ways of generating an income.

The State Second Pension (S2P) replaced SERPS with effect from 6 April 2002.