Individual Pensions

Individual Pension information

The good news is that you've started a pension, and are already preparing for your future. A pension is a straightforward way of saving for your retirement, and gives you the opportunity for tax-efficient growth on your investment.

Remember, your plan also allows you to:

Change your payments to stay in line with possible changing circumstances.
Control your investment strategy to reflect the amount of investment risk you are willing to take and your future income needs

When you retire, there's flexibility and choice over when and how you receive your benefits. You can normally take part of your plan as a tax-free lump sum at that time.

Even if you’ve currently got more pressing financial commitments, it's important that you regularly review your plan, and that's where Scottish Widows and your financial adviser can help.

The value of the tax benefits of your plan depend on your individual circumstances. Your circumstances and tax rules may change in the future.

Information about your product

Select your product below:

Topping up your plan

Topping up your pension plan is easy. You can increase the level of your existing regular payments, add an automatic increase option or add a single lump sum payment.

Just read through your plan literature, and then call us

Stakeholder and Personal pensions - 0845 716 6777* (Open 8am to 6pm weekdays, 9am to 12.30pm Saturday)
Retirement Account - 0845 716 6733* (Open 8am to 6pm weekdays, 9am to 12.30pm Saturday).

We'll answer any queries you may have if you don't have your plan literature to hand.

Or you can write to us with details of your plan and the amount you want to add (please include a cheque if you want to add a single lump sum payment). Please make your cheque payable to Scottish Widows, with your name and plan number written on the back.

When writing a cheque, it will help to prevent fraud if you include additional information on the Payee Line. For example "Scottish Widows re: your name, your reference policy number xxxyyz". Remember to draw a line through unused space on the cheque so extra numbers or names cannot be added.

You can use our quick pension calculator to give you an idea of how much you can put away each month to help you achieve your goal.

Options at retirement

If you're about to retire and take your benefits, you'll need to convert your pension plan into a regular income.

Scottish Widows offers a choice of:

buying an annuity to give you a guaranteed regular retirement income or
buying a plan where you can take retirement income directly from your pension fund.

It's also easy to compare annuity providers (remember you don't have to buy your annuity from your pension provider). The level of income you receive from your pension plan will depend upon a number of factors including the value of the plan when you decide to take your pension, which isn't guaranteed and can go down as well as up. You can compare what you would get in exchange for your pension fund from different providers.

Annuities

When you retire, if guaranteed income is an important part of your retirement planning, you should consider an annuity, which will give you a regular income, guaranteed for life.

A Scottish Widows Conventional Annuity lets you take a tax-free cash sum from your pension fund, then convert what's left into a taxable income. It can also -

provide an income after your death for your wife, husband or other dependant
be guaranteed to be paid for up to 5 years - even if you die before then
provide a level of index-linking so that your income payments increase each year

However, using either of the first two options will mean that the annual income you get will be lower throughout the lifetime of your annuity, and using the last option will mean that the annual income you get to start with will be lower.

Find out more about annuities.

FAQs