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Consumer  >  Our group pensions  >  Our group pensions

Our group pensions

If you're a member of a Scottish Life pension that your employer has set up for you, or thinking of joining your employer's pension, this page has information that's relevant to you.

You may not have heard of Scottish Life before. That's because we only provide pensions through financial advisers, meaning that we don't have an expensive branch network like the big banks. Similarly, we don't believe that spending millions of pounds on advertising is a good use of our customers' money. If you want to know more about Scottish Life then you can visit the Why Scottish Life? area which has lots of information.

Employers can set up lots of different types of pensions for their staff. Rather than go into detail on the different types here, you can visit our Employer area to find out more information on what's available. If you're unsure what type you have you can ask your employer or your financial adviser (if you have one).

You may feel that you haven't been able to make many decisions on your pension - your employer has decided what kind of pension to offer you, how much they are willing to pay in and probably how your money should be invested initially. But there are still lots of ways you can get involved in your pension and get the best value out of it.

Online service

Depending on how your employer has set things up, you may be able to maintain your pension securely online, just like internet banking. You can check your savings so far, get projections of how much that could buy you in retirement and even change how much you're paying in. You can also keep your address and contact details up to date. At Scottish Life we have won lots of awards for our technology, so you can be sure that you're using the best online service around.

We've developed an interactive demo to show you the sorts of things you can do online. If you don't have access to our online service or are unsure, you should ask your employer. If they haven't set the pension up to be online, why not ask them to change it over? All they need to do is give Scottish Life a call and we'll take care of the rest.

Investment

Most employer-sponsored pensions have a 'default' investment choice. This means that you are automatically put into a certain investment fund unless you choose otherwise. Often the default choice is a 'managed' fund which holds a mix of stocks and shares, cash and bonds. But did you know that you can choose from a wide range of funds? Depending on how your employer has set your pension up, you might even be able to change your investments online.

To get a full listing of all the funds that are available, you should visit our fund factsheets page. Choosing the right investment is an important decision that can seriously damage your wealth if you get it wrong, so you should consider taking financial advice before making your choice.

More benefits for you

Remember that your employer will almost certainly be paying into your pension for you, meaning that you should be better off in retirement than if you were just striking out on your own. In addition, because you're in a group of employees, it's possible that your charges (the money that we take to cover the costs of running the plan) may be lower due to economies of scale.

Take advice

It's really important to make sure that you talk your pension decisions through with an expert. Your employer may have links to an adviser if you don't have one yourself. If you need to find an adviser then visit Find an IFA to find one in your area.

Finally, go to Contact Us if you need to get in touch. We'll do our best to help, although we won't be able to give you financial advice.