PensionBee: The Easiest Way To Manage Your Old Pensions

Keeping track of your pension savings when you’ve had more than one job is no easy task. 

Luckily, there are now services available to help you manage your old pensions more effectively. 

Companies like PensionBee consolidate all your old pensions into one easy to manage plan. You can then find out how much you’ve saved for retirement so far, and can rest easy knowing that your pension is being properly managed. 

What is PensionBee?

PensionBee is an online service that makes managing your pension easier. They transfer multiple old pension pots and then invest them into one new plan. This means you only have to keep track of, and manage, one pension plan at a time. 

Once you’ve transferred your pensions, you can log into your online account at any time. Having this level of visibility means you’ll know exactly how your money is being invested, what fees you’re paying every year, your current pension savings, and even what your projected retirement income is.

See More: Four Reasons Why You Might Want To Consolidate Your Pensions

How does it work?

There are two parts to PensionBee. The first is their pension service finder, and the second is their pension plans. 

Their pension service finder is a tool that helps you locate and consolidate your pension pots. PensionBee uses personal information like your National Insurance Number and date of birth to track down your old pensions. If you have your pension provider details, or policy number this helps them find your old pensions more quickly. Once they’ve found all of your existing pension plans they’ll transfer your pension into one of the PensionBee pension plans. 

You can then choose to invest your pension into a range of different plans. Each plan has a different asset mix, different levels of risk, and different associated fees. 

Your pension is then invested and managed by big global investment managers, like State Street Global Advisors, HSBC, BlackRock and Legal & General, so you know your money is in safe hands. 

The PensionBee dashboard means you’ll easily be able to see all your pensions online. If you’re self employed, you can also top-up your pension and manage your account whenever you wish. 

Types of plans: 

There are nine different PensionBee plans you can choose from. 

Lower Risk: If you’re close to retirement, you might want to choose a pension plan with lower risk. The PensionBee Preserve plan might be your best bet as it lets you make short-term investments with more secure companies. 

Mid Risk: There are five different plans on PensionBee that qualify as mid risk – Tracker, Tailored, 4Plus, Match and Pre-Annuity. The most popular plan in this group is the Tailored plan, which sees your money invested into safer investments as you get closer to retirement. 

Higher Risk: The higher risk plans see you invest your money into a select group of companies that either have a more environmentally friendly focus, are Shariah-compliant, or are aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. These types of plans are suitable for anyone that wants to make a difference by investing in socially responsible companies.

One thing we like about PensionBee is that you can also switch between the different plans for no cost. This means you can tailor your investment strategy to your current financial goals, reducing or increasing the level of risk as you please.

PensionBee Fees: 

PensionBee doesn’t charge anything for transferring, consolidating, and adding or withdrawing money from your pensions. 

It does, however, charge an annual management fee for its pension products. This fee gets automatically deducted from your pension savings at the end of the financial year.

As mentioned above, the fee will depend on the type of plan you pick, but will range from 0.5% to 0.95% on your first £100K. Once you reach £100K, the fee is halved on any savings over £100K. 

There are also small transaction fees that you may be required to pay. This type of fee is common when you invest your money, whether it’s a pension, ISA, or other investment. Each plan has a different transaction fee, although the most you’ll pay is 0.27%. 

It’s also worth noting that if you transfer your pension to PensionBee and then decide to withdraw it within the first 12 months, you’ll have to pay an exit fee of £480. This is to discourage people from withdrawing all their money at once, instead of following the pension best practice of gradually taking the money out as a regular income. 

5 Things You Need To Know About UK Pensions

Who Could Benefit From Using PensionBee?

PensionBee is a pretty handy tool for anyone looking to simplify their pension. 

If you’ve changed employers more than once and feel like you’re losing track of each of your pension pots, then taking action now can make your retirement a whole lot easier. You’ll have just one pension pot to think about, and won’t have the hassle of finding past pensions in 20, 30, 40 years time. 

Combining your pensions also means you have greater financial control over your money. Your old pension pots might be sitting in accounts with poorly performing funds, or mega high fees but you’re unlikely to know about this if you don’t actively keep an eye on them. 

You can become a PensionBee customer as long as you have an existing UK pension. But, if you’re in the civil service, or have a government pension then unfortunately PensionBee might not offer any benefits, as you can’t transfer government pensions. This includes anyone working for the NHS, as well as teachers, firefighters, and people in the army or police force. 

How To Open An Account:

If you want to combine your old pensions into one easy to manage plan, then consider signing up to PensionBee. 

To get started, create an account by providing your name, contact details and National Insurance number. 

To help PensionBee locate your old pensions, you’ll then need to share some details about your previous employment – having your old policy numbers or pension provider details to hand will speed up the whole process. This link to the GOV site can help you find more information about your previous pension details.

PensionBee is super simple to use, but just in case you have any concerns, you’ll be given a dedicated “Beekeeper” to help you through the process and answer any questions you have.

PensionBee X Emma:

If you’re currently managing your money with Emma, you can now get six months of Emma Pro for free if you sign up to PensionBee using this link before the 14th of March 2021. Simply create an account and combine your pensions into one plan to get the offer.

Want to know more about Emma Pro? Click here to read Eight Reasons Why You Need Emma Pro!

* Sign up to PensionBee through Emma before the 14th March and we’ll give you six months of Emma Pro for free. Create an account and combine your pensions into one plan to get the offer. As with all investments, your capital is at risk. Pensions can go down in value as well as up, so you could get back less than you invest

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