Reviewing your investments

Getting your money ready for your retirement.

As you approach retirement, you may want to review how your money is invested to make sure it’s in the right place to suit the decisions you may take at retirement.

If you have been managing your own investment strategy on a Self Select basis, you may want to review the amount of risk you are taking to avoid any unwelcome surprises. For example, if you are planning to take an annuity, the money might be in assets (such as government bonds) that move in line with the cost of annuities. If you are planning to use income drawdown, you may want to keep the funds growing at an appropriate level of risk.

Most FuturePlanner members use the Default strategy (managed for you) and your investments will have been moving gradually to lower-risk funds. In the last five years leading up to your target retirement age, the money will move to a Default Retirement focus fund, suitable for income drawdown, and which you could use to transfer to an income drawdown provider of your choice, or into a workplace Master Trust pension scheme called Smart Pension. In this case, your investments will be switched across into Smart Pension from FuturePlanner without the risk of hefty charges during the transfer process.

However, if you already know that you want to take an annuity or withdraw all of the money early on in retirement, you can choose one of the alternative Retirement focus funds. To find out more about the Retirement focus options, click here.

Checking your target retirement age

When you joined FuturePlanner, you will have been asked to name a target retirement age, which can be any age from 55 (but from April 2028, it will increase to 57 if you joined on or after 4 November 2021). This age is important for those using the Default strategy because it sets the dates when the gradual de-risking takes place. If it turns out that you are unlikely to retire at the target age you chose, please into your Account to update it.