People's Pension Reviews | Workplace Pensions Customer Feedback & Ratings

Trying to see how the investment streams are working in the last three months is difficult to find. Has a three month report but that is sometimes over three months old.

They move you into a pre-retirement fund about 10 years before retirement and it isn't clear this is happening. You just presume that a decent return will be gained but it worked out at 9% over 5 years for me. They were founded in 1943 and it seems their whole ethos is based around people still taking annuities and therefore having to accept miserable returns towards the end in bonds to ensure no loss before the whole lot is handed over for an annuity. With drawdown, people can make better choices and accept more short term risk in my view. Better in the building society than their fund. The app was a nightmare and took months to allow you to log in properly. Endless spinning wheels and "I am sorry this is taking longer than usual". I have transferred out to AJ Bell as the fund choice was poor. I suspect the sharp suited salespeople with their Powerpoint presentatiion impress employers but dealing with them is like wading through treacle. It took nearly 6 weeks to transfer out. They use the pensions security regulations as an endless excuse for their well publicised delays. (Up to 56 days for transfers) Most firms using the Origo system are at 11 working days. Their is an air of condescension about them and you are just a silly customer who would not understand pensions and used this as an excuse not to staff up to meet the demands of their new found popularity. Glad to be rid of them.

Unfortunately, in spite of the all the lovely things they tell you about the low charges and the rebate on fees depending on the size of your pot, the performance of the pre-retirement has been criminally poor. I didn't realise that 10-15 years before you retire they automatically move you into the pre-retirement fund. So, let's look at the performance. 5 year average performance 1.2% growth per year. 3 year average growth is basically nothing. You would genuinely be better putting your money under your bed after taking into account inflation. The only reason to be with them is because of the tax relief. I had a parallel previous pension pot invested at the same time and it made 40% more that People's pension. The 100% equity fund performs better, but still lags any decent all world ETF tracker fund by a mile. Secondly, the app is a nightmare. The main thing you will see is a constant message saying "I'm sorry this is taking longer than usual". About 40% of the time, you just can't log in. They do major upgrades and work on the app during the day when people need access. I moved my pension to another provider, I just wish I'd picked up they put me in the losing funds many years earlier.

The Dashboard of this provider to OK but not detailed enough for a serious investor. You struggle to find anything but the 3 month report that may be three months out of date. You can only see the daily price tables if you seek out the the tab for those in the industry

If there was ever a winner for most boring pension, People's Pension take the gold medal.