Why your pension review matters

A pension is, for most people, one of the largest single financial assets they'll ever own. And yet it's also the asset people are most likely to leave on autopilot for years at a time. Set up at the start of a job, or when an adviser was last involved, then quietly invested in whatever default fund came with it — sometimes for a decade or more before anyone looks again.

A pension review isn't about churning or making changes for their own sake. It's about checking — every year or two — that the pension is still doing what it should, in a world that has moved on since it was set up.

What a review actually checks

There are five things we typically look at:

• Charges. Older personal pensions and stakeholder pensions often have charges that look high by today's standards. A 1% annual charge versus a 0.4% charge over 25 years is a meaningful difference — potentially tens of thousands of pounds on a six-figure pot.
• Investment fit. The default fund a pension started in may not match your current circumstances or your tolerance for risk. A 35-year-old's investment strategy is rarely the right strategy for a 55-year-old.
• Performance. Not all funds perform equally. We don't chase recent winners, but we do want to know whether your investments are broadly tracking what they should be tracking, with reasonable diversification.
• Beneficiaries. A 'nominated beneficiary' form tells the pension trustee who you'd like to receive any remaining pot if you die. Many pensions still have nominations from years ago — naming an ex-partner, a since-deceased parent, or no one at all. It's a one-page form, free to update, and it can save your family significant trouble and tax.
• Features. Older pensions sometimes have valuable guarantees — guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash, protected pension ages — that can be worth thousands of pounds. They're also occasionally missing features that have become standard, like flexi-access drawdown.

Why now matters

Two specific changes make 2025/26 a particularly worthwhile moment to review:

First, normal minimum pension age — the earliest age you can normally access a pension — is rising from 55 to 57 on 6 April 2028. Some pensions have a protected pension age that lets the holder still access the pension at 55. Whether you have one, and whether a transfer would lose it, are worth knowing before any decisions get made.

Second, from 6 April 2027, unused defined contribution pensions are due to come within the scope of Inheritance Tax. For clients with significant pension wealth, that changes the calculus on how much to hold in pensions versus elsewhere, on what order to draw from different pots, and on whether to look at IHT-friendly alternatives. It's not a reason to panic — but it is a reason to look.

The case for ongoing reviews

Markets move, your circumstances change, tax rules change, providers update their products. Without a review, your pension is being carried by yesterday's decisions. A regular check-in — typically annual for clients who have ongoing advice — keeps the strategy current and gives you the chance to adjust contributions, change risk level, or take advantage of new options.

The value of investments and the income from them can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invest. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

What a review doesn't always mean

A review doesn't always lead to a transfer or a change of provider. Sometimes the right answer is 'no change — what you have is fine'. Sometimes it's a small tweak — updating beneficiaries, adjusting risk level, increasing contributions. Occasionally, where charges are high or features are missing, a transfer makes sense. The point of the review is to find out which of those is true; the action follows from the answer, not the other way around.

Defined benefit (final salary) pensions deserve special mention. Transferring out of a DB scheme is rarely the right thing to do, and any advice to do so is heavily regulated. We'll always start from the assumption that staying in a DB scheme is the right answer, and only move from that if there are unusual and well-evidenced reasons.