Advice on Early Pension payout, before moving to US from UK
 

To Anyone who can advise me

I am in a situation where I have a Group Pension Plan with Standard Life in the UK. I want to terminate the plan and get a refund on at least what I invested into the pension plan. Is this possible? So far Standard Life is saying I can only touch the plan when I am 50 and can't cash it in, at an earlier time. They also said some other absurd statement, that I can't transfer it to the US due to some Inland Revenue issue. Any info at all would be helpful.

Regards

Scott

Not sure how accurate I am but this is how I understood it.

If it is a stakeholder pension, you can't get a refund, period (oops, American term :) ) Once the plan starts you can't get any contributions refunded and you have to wait until the end of the plan (i.e. the retirement date you selected).

As for any other pension plans, I think you can get a refund if the policy is 1 -2 years old, older than that, then you can't.

I have three pensions in the UK and all three are frozen. I can't touch any of them.

My advice though is to check with the company you have the policies with and they will be able to advise you.

One of mine is with NatWest and they told me I could transfer mine over to any policy I have in the USA once I have one established.

Hope this helps, but do check first.

My husband's group pension plan (with Legal and General) has been paying out since he left the company- he had the choice of leaving it till retirement age or taking payments now. He gets it paid into our accounts in Jersey- but they would pay it over here in dollars if he wanted. He was under 50 when he claimed it but that was 12 years ago, so maybe the rules have changed. (he had been with the company and paying into the plan for 14 years- dunno if this makes a difference).