Where to get help when choosing a stakeholder pension
If you think a stakeholder pension might be suitable for you, the next stage is to choose one.
If you're offered a stakeholder pension through your work, you're generally better off signing up to it, rather than sorting out your own one. That's because your employer is likely to contribute to it on your behalf. However, if you’re self-employed, you work for a very small business which doesn't have to provide a stakeholder pension (one with fewer than five employees) or you don’t work at all, you can take out a stakeholder pension privately.
Stakeholder pensions are flexible pensions that you can take out privately or you may be offered through your work.
Stakeholder pensions were launched by the government with a great fanfare in 2001 and were introduced as a solution to the problem of millions of us not saving enough for our retirement. They’ve not caused the revolution in pensions that the government hoped for, but they do have some benefits (especially if you can’t afford to pay much into a pension). Although they’re essentially personal pensions, confusingly, they may be offered to you through your work. As with all pensions, you can’t get at your money before you reach 55.
