Your Personal Pension

Helping to secure your financial future

When you started investing in a personal pension, you were looking for a tax-efficient way to save for your retirement. Something that would help you enjoy a comfortable retirement after all those years of working hard.

Well, in our opinion, choosing Pru as your pension provider was the right decision. Your money is invested in our £67 billion With-Profits Fund (as at 30 June 2008), and we were voted joint Best Pension Provider of 2007 by readers of What Investment magazine.

Of course, your personal pension is still one of the most tax-efficient ways to save. For every £1 you invest in your pension, you only need to contribute 80p - the tax man makes up the difference in tax relief. If you're a higher rate tax payer, you can claim further tax relief via your tax return.

How we look after your money
What to do next
Coming up to retirement

How we look after your money

• Our With-Profits Fund has continued to grow thanks to our fund management and long-term approach.
• Our fund managers constantly review our investment options and are always ready to switch the emphasis of the With-Profits Fund's assets to take account of market movements.
• The 'smoothing effect' of with-profits helps reduce the peaks and troughs of share prices. It holds back some of the returns in good years to support bonus payments in harder times, therefore aiming to deliver a steady return on your investment over the years. A reassuring prospect as you get closer to retirement.
• Prudential has one of the largest and strongest With-Profits funds in the UK, with over 150 years of experience.

What to do next

• It's very important to review your pension plan and make sure it's on track to help provide for the retirement you're looking for. 
• We're all living longer these days and want to maintain our lifestyle, which means we need even more money in our pension plan - so the sooner you top up your investments the better off you may be.
• Our pensions already give you plenty of flexibility - so it's easy to increase your monthly premiums or make regular top ups.

Coming up to retirement

• When you reach retirement age, you'll have some important decisions to make. You'll need to decide whether or not to take up to 25% of your pension plan as a tax-free lump sum. You can then use the balance of your pension fund (or the whole amount if you don't take a lump sum) to buy an annuity - a pension income for life.
• You're quite free to shop around for your annuity, known as Open Market Option. But you might like to know that Prudential has a reputation for providing excellent annuity rates.

It's one of the reasons Prudential is the No.1 annuity provider in the UK*. We've been voted 'Best Annuity Provider' by the independent magazine, Moneywise in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. *Source: based on publicly available information for new business figures 2006.

Finally, please remember that your annuity income will be taxable. You will have enjoyed generous tax relief while you were saving for your pension, so it's no great surprise that the Government will want to recoup some of this by taxing your annuity income. 

The above is based on our understanding, as at January 2008, of current taxation, legislation and HM Revenue & Customs practice, all of which are liable to change without notice. The impact of taxation (and any tax reliefs) depends on individual circumstances

  More about annuities