Prudential 'With Profits' Analysis

[JaffaB]

Hi,

Last month I did some analysis of my various pension funds (I have
four) and found that the prudential 'with profits' fund returned just
5.02% gross over the last 3 years. This is despite the prudential
blurb saying that it has returned over 20% each year for the last 5
years. This makes it my worst perfroming pention, and in fact, is
worse perfroming than sticking the x,000k of money in a high intrest
savings account (way to go prudential).

Has anybody else analysed their prudential pension and found similar
results?

I complained to the prudential, and got a long letter back, with lots
of information that I alredy know (how much I have paid in, when I
increased payments etc), and then the letter got into the heart of the
matter. I Quote....

"Before the 20% return can be passed to our policyholders through our
bonus mechanism, we must make various allowances to ensure the
long-term future of the fund. We must also build up our reserves used
to reduce the impact on our policy holders of the volatile markets.
This is known as 'smoothing' and limits the changes that can arise in
the benifits payable in a particular year. This means that changes in
claim values will not mirror changes in the underlying investment
markets so that bonuses will not necessarily rise as markets start to
recover"

All in all, they say that the product returns 20% growth but that they
keep money back to take out the dips. So then why dont they just
quote a real pension return of around 5%. Is this not missselling?

As I say, would be intrested to hear from anybody else witha Prudential
with-profits fund, to see what their analysis of their pension reveils.

 

[Daytona]

All in all, they say that the product returns 20% growth but that they
keep money back to take out the dips. So then why dont they just
quote a real pension return of around 5%. Is this not missselling?

No, it's just part of the bullshit surrounding WP policies.

The FTSE100 has risen by 13.6% over the period, and add 11% for
dividends at 3.5%pa. But this is only part of the story as WP funds
generally have a significant property portfolio as well. According to
the IPD commercial property index, it's grown at 12.9%
<URL:http://www.ipdindex.co.uk/results/indices/indices.asp>

So the Prudentials return looks reasonable to me.

You chose a WP fund with all that that entails, so you can either
accept the smoothing or move it to something like a SIPP and a high
income fund.

Daytona