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Invest
The contributions you pay into the Plan are invested to help them grow. How much money you have in your account when you retire depends on three things:
- how much you’ve paid in
- how much you’ve paid in charges
- how your investments have performed.
What’s your style?
You can choose how your Plan savings are invested. Whether you know lots about investments or very little, we’ve got options for you. You might want to be hands-on and manage your investments yourself, or you might prefer to stand back and have your investments managed for you. Investing responsibly might be a priority for you, or you may already know how you want to take your money when you retire. Whatever your style, we’ve got an investment option to suit you.
Drawdown lifestyle – the automatic option
If you don’t tell us how you want to invest your contributions, we’ll automatically invest them in the Drawdown lifestyle option. This is the Plan’s default investment which is designed to be suitable for most members. Everything is managed for you, and you don’t need to make specific investment decisions. It aims to grow your money while you’re a long way from retirement and then gradually reduces the investment risk in the seven years leading up to your target retirement age. It gets your money ready for you to take a flexible income at retirement, called ‘drawdown’.
What’s lifestyling?
Lifestyling is a way of managing your investments for you. In the early years when you’re a long way from retirement, your money is invested in funds which aim to build growth. Then, as you get closer to retirement, your money is gradually and automatically switched from growth investments into less volatile ones like bonds and cash. This aims to protect the value of your account from any sudden changes in market conditions when you’re getting close to retirement.
The Plan’s lifestyle options
The lifestyle options are for you if you know how you’d like to take your money when you retire, but you don’t want to manage your investments yourself.
The Plan has three lifestyle options that you can choose from. They all start in the same way with 100% of your contributions being invested for growth in a fund called the Diversified Growth Fund. Then, during the seven years before your target retirement age, your savings are gradually and automatically moved into lower-risk investments to prepare for the way you want to take your money. At your target retirement age, all the lifestyle options hold 25% of your savings in the Cash Fund while the other 75% is invested in funds that target the way you want to use your money.
With all the options, you can take up to 25% of your savings as a tax-free lump sum (capped at £268,275) when you retire and use the rest to provide your retirement income in the way that suits you:
Drawdown lifestyle (also the Plan’s automatic option if you don’t make a choice) – this is for you if you want to keep your savings invested in a special drawdown account, once you’ve retired, where you can decide how much you want to withdraw and when. Click here to view the factsheet.
Annuity lifestyle – this is for you if you want to use your savings to buy an annuity, which is an insurance policy that pays you a guaranteed income for the rest of your life. Click here to view the factsheet.
Lump sum lifestyle – this is for you if you want to take all your savings as cash. Click here to view the factsheet.
You can choose how your contributions are invested by logging in via Manage Your Account.
Target retirement age
It’s really important to choose a target retirement age if you’re using one of the lifestyle investment options because the switching process begins based on when you plan to retire. If you don’t pick a target retirement age, we’ll assume you’ll be retiring at age 65.
Why your target retirement age matters
If you’ve left your target retirement age at age 65, but you’re actually hoping to retire earlier, it could mean that your pension account is still invested in a growth fund too close to your retirement. If there’s a sudden downturn in the financial markets, your retirement savings might not have enough time to recover.
Similarly, if you’ve chosen age 55, but find you want to continue working a bit longer, your investments will have started switching into less volatile funds too soon and you might miss out on some investment growth.
You can change your target retirement age at any time by logging in via Manage Your Account.
Self-select options
This is for you if you prefer to manage your investments yourself, choosing from a range of different funds. You can’t invest in a lifestyle option and a self-select fund at the same time.
There are different asset classes, sectors and geographical areas. Each fund has its own level of risk. You decide how to invest your savings depending on your financial goals, your personal values and your attitude to risk.
There’s no programme in place to monitor your investments and no lifestyling as you approach retirement. You’ll need to have enough knowledge and time to make these decisions yourself and keep an eye on what’s happening with your investments.
The self-select fund range:
- UK Equity Tracker Fund
- International Equity Tracker Fund
- Emerging Markets Tracker Fund
- Diversified Growth Fund
- Index-Linked Gilts Tracker Fund
- UK Gilts Over 15 Year Tracker Fund
- Corporate Bond Fund
- Cash Fund
- Annuity Pre-Retirement Fund
- Property Fund
- Lump Sum Fund
- Income Drawdown Fund
- International Equity Sharia Fund
You can choose and make changes to your self-select investments by logging in via Manage Your Account.
Responsible investing
The Plan’s Trustee is responsible for providing the investment strategies and the range of fund options you can choose from.
We believe that achieving long-term, sustainable growth depends on investing in stable, well-functioning and well-governed companies. We choose fund managers for the Plan, who consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the way they invest. This includes engaging with the companies we invest in to help them change.
The Plan’s main fund manager, Legal & General, is committed to addressing climate change by supporting the transition to reach net-zero for greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or earlier across all assets under its management.
You can find out more about the Plan’s investment options in the Investment guide or you can register for one of L&G’s responsible investment or financial wellbeing webinars.
(Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 7pm)
