The take-aways from the British Steel Pensions

From an outsiders point of view it seems that the original scheme offered by British Steel was a final salary scheme I would imagine with some guarantees, the problem being at the point of being taken over by Tata, there was talk of transferring the said final salary scheme to a money purchase with a buy out, Ouch, I don’t fully know the ins and outs of what the old scheme was, neither do I know what was said about taking the cash equivalent transfer value, however I imagine depending on your age there were options and choices and like all advisers or salesmen there is influence and when there is influence people are asked to make decisions. Now this is of course where looking back, at previous choices, there are good and bad, isn’t this the same for every purchase or transaction that we make. The difference being of course that people can and do take up litigation often encouraged by the mis-selling firms, where there is blame their is a claim. So If you took the cash and transfer and then five years later realised it wasn’t such a good choice, lets go sue the original adviser.

I could go on but I am sure you would all get bored, I guess the truth is financial advisers are generally working for a commission, and the advice being given isn’t always the best advice and in some cases can lead you to become worse off. Who said retirement is a good deal anyway? Next time I might blog about pension credit or small retirement pots. Keep cheery until then.