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Flexible Retirement Plan (with SIPP options)

Your Flexible Retirement Plan is designed to help you save towards your retirement. It offers a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) option, so you have more control over your investments. This plan is now closed to new customers, but existing customers can make changes.

Contents

  1. How your pension plan works
  2. Managing your plan
  3. Understanding your options
  4. Things to consider
  5. Funds and plan information
  6. Getting financial advice
  7. Next steps

How your pension plan works

Your pension is designed to provide a tax-efficient way of helping you build up a pension pot for your retirement.

Pension plans offer tax relief on your payments (subject to certain limits), and any growth in your plan is largely tax-free. In most cases, you can take up to 25% of your plan tax-free, with the remainder being taxable.

Managing your plan

We can help, whether you're looking to

  • top-up your pension
  • stop your contributions
  • change your contribution amount
  • transfer your pension, or
  • change (switch) the funds you’re invested in.

 

If you have Waiver of Premium and are unable to work due to illness or accident, you may be able to apply for your payments to be made on your behalf. Please call us so we can discuss this in more detail.

Before making any changes to your plan:
  • Please make sure you understand your options and how they might affect your plan, because once you’ve told us what you’ve decided to do, you may not be able to change your mind.
  • Check your annual statement for details of the charges that apply to your pension plan.
  • We recommend you get financial advice. See ‘Getting financial advice’ for more information about this.
  • Remember, the value of your investment can go down as well as up, so you might not get back the amount you put in.

Manage your plan online

The quickest and easiest way to access information about your Prudential product, manage it, or to make changes to certain personal information, is through our Online Service. Registering is quick and easy.

Register for our Online Service

Already registered? Access your product details, update your information and message us directly using our Online Service.

Log in

Nominate a beneficiary

You'll be able to nominate a beneficiary by completing and posting us the beneficiary nomination form. To get a copy of the relevant form, please contact us.

Top-up your pension

You may be able to top up your pension, but to confirm you'll need to contact us.

Understanding your options

Your options may vary depending on the choices you’ve made so far. You could:

  • Take a payment break by stopping payments temporarily.
  • Make your plan paid-up, which means permanently stopping payments.
  • Change the amount you pay in to your plan.
  • Switch some or all of your investments within your plan.
  • Direct future payments to other investments.
  • Transfer your pension to another provider.

Things to consider

  • You might need to pay tax depending on your circumstances and the options you choose.
  • Tax rules can also change in the future. You may want to seek advice.
  • Once you take tax-free cash from your pension, it can't be cancelled or reversed.

  • The amount available to provide benefits will be reduced.
  • You’ll lose any additional benefits, like life cover or Waiver of Premium.
  • You may not be able to restart payments.
  • There may be a change to charges or additional charges. Existing charges for managing your plan will continue.
  • If your employer also makes payments these might be affected. Your employer should be able to help you.
  • There could be an impact on any means-tested benefits.
  • You may have to make a decision about what to do with your plan.

  • If you reduce your payments the amount available when you take your benefits will be reduced.
  • Charges on your plan may change.
  • Any additional benefits, like life cover or Waiver of Premium, could be affected.
  • The amount of tax relief you get is related to the amount you pay.
  • You could exceed your Annual Allowance, resulting in a tax charge.
  • If your employer also makes payments these might be affected. Your employer should be able to help you.
  • There could be an impact any state or salary related benefits that you may be entitled to.
  • Depending on your plan and how close you are to taking your benefits, it may not be possible to increase payments to the With-Profits Fund.

There’s no guarantee that one investment will perform any better than another. So in making your decision, you should consider the following.

Your personal investment profile

Fund-specific considerations

  • Charges may differ between funds.
  • You can switch some or all of your money between funds at any time, but there are limits to the number of funds you can invest in.
  • Switching out of the With-Profits Fund could result in a Market Value Reduction (MVR) reducing the amount switched out.
  • You may lose any guarantees, benefits and options on your existing investments.

Timing and processing

  • In some circumstances your switch instruction could be delayed. We’ll let you know if this applies.

Lifestyle options

  • If you’re invested in - or have access to - a lifestyle option, you should think about how and when you plan to take your benefits. This option automatically moves your investment into less risky funds, as you get closer to taking your benefits.
Find out more about Lifestyling

  • Exit charges - Leaving your current plan may incur an exit fee.
  • Loss of guarantees and benefits - Any guarantees, benefits, options and features under your existing plan may be lost and this could affect the benefits you receive.
  • Different features - The new plan may have different investment options - check if they meet your needs.
  • No performance guarantee - There’s no guarantee a new plan will perform better than your current plan.
  • Charges - Charges applied to your new plan may be higher or lower than what you pay now.
  • With-Profits Fund impact - Transferring out of the With-Profits Fund could result in a Market Value Reduction (MVR) which can reduce the value of any withdrawals taken from the fund.
  • No performance guarantee - The new plan may not perform better than your current one.
  • Possible growth loss - Transfers take time, and your money won’t be invested during the process.
  • Partial transfers - You might not need to transfer your entire plan – call us to find out more.
  • Seek advice - Pension transfers are a complex area of financial planning, and getting the decision wrong could significantly impact the benefits you receive. You should seek financial advice before proceeding.

Funds and plan information

Getting financial advice

If you’re making an important financial decision, or thinking about your longer term financial health, then we recommend you get financial advice. 

  • You should speak to your financial adviser if you have one.
  • If you don’t have an adviser, you can search for an independent financial adviser by visiting unbiased.co.uk or by calling them on 0800 023 6868.
  • You could speak to M&G Advice. Whether it's about financial planning, accessing your pension, making sure you get the most from your tax allowances or protecting your loved ones; whatever your financial goals – we can help.

Next steps

Contact us if you want to go ahead with making a change to your pension plan.

Call us on 0345 640 1000 or +44 178 644 8844 if you’re calling from abroad. We can’t give you advice or make your decision for you, but we’ll be happy to help you understand your plan and talk you through all your available options and their possible implications.

Lines are open Monday to Friday, 08:00 - 18:00, except bank holidays. Please make sure you have your plan number to hand when you call.

We might record your call for training and quality purposes. To find out more about how we use your personal data please visit the My Data page.