Old pensions with closed and legacy providers

Pensions taken out decades ago often end up being run by a company the policyholder has never heard of. Providers sell or transfer blocks of old policies to specialist firms, sometimes called closed-book providers, which exist to administer them rather than to win new customers. ReAssure, for example, asks customers directly whether their policy transferred to it from Legal & General¹. The Financial Conduct Authority notes that you can usually transfer or consolidate your pensions at any point, and that a transfer usually cannot be undone, so knowing exactly what an old policy contains matters before anything is moved¹.

Old policies can hold valuable features that newer pensions do not, including guaranteed annuity rates that let you convert the pot into a higher guaranteed income than you could get elsewhere¹. They can also hold with-profits funds, where the final payout can be reduced by a Market Value Reduction if you cash in early. This page explains who looks after closed policies, how to check what yours is worth, what an MVR is, when you can take money out, and what help is free if something goes wrong.

Why your old pension may now be with a different company

Pension companies change hands. When a provider stops selling new pensions, or decides a block of old policies no longer fits its business, it can sell or transfer those policies to another firm that specialises in running them. The policy itself carries on, with the same fund and the same terms, but the name at the top of the statement changes. Nothing about this means anything has gone wrong: it is how the market for older policies works, and the new administrator takes on the same duties to the policyholder.

What it does mean is that the features of the policy deserve a fresh look before anything is done with it. The FCA warns that an old policy might let you convert your pension into a higher guaranteed income than you can get elsewhere, through guaranteed annuity rates, and that pension charges have been reducing over time, so new schemes might have lower charges than old schemes¹. Those two facts pull in opposite directions: an old policy can be both more valuable in its guarantees and more expensive in its charges than a modern one.

The Financial Ombudsman Service sees the consequences when this is not checked. Common issues in complaints about transfers from personal pensions include advisers not disclosing higher charges, the loss of guarantees such as guaranteed annuity rates, and market value adjustments on with-profits funds⁵. In other words, people have moved old policies without being told what they were giving up.

Two other events can also change who holds a pension. If the employer behind a workplace scheme goes out of business, you still get your pension, but your pot might be reduced because administration costs are paid from members' pots⁶. And where a company scheme has been taken over by the Pension Protection Fund, the option to transfer out to a defined contribution scheme is generally no longer available⁷. The guides on what happens to your workplace pension when you leave a job and the Pension Protection Fund cover those situations.

Countrywide Assured and the companies that run older policies

A handful of firms specialise in running policies that are no longer open to new customers. One of them is Countrywide Assured, which looks after pensions and investments for former clients and offers several ways to manage them online: The Portal, Platform and MyPolicy, each used to view and manage pensions and investments, and MyPolicy lets you register to access your policy information online⁸. If your statement now carries a name you do not recognise, that company is playing this role: it administers the policy, sends the annual statements, answers queries and pays out when the time comes.

Closed-book firms vary in size and in how much of their business is legacy policies, but the relationship with the policyholder is the same whoever holds it. The provider must send annual statements telling you how much your fund is worth⁹, and it remains responsible for handling complaints, which can ultimately reach an ombudsman. The practical point for a consumer is simple: the company named on your latest statement is the one to contact about anything to do with the policy, even if you originally took it out with a firm that no longer exists in that form. The wider landscape of firms is covered in pension providers, investment platforms and fund managers.

Finding your fund, charges and performance on your annual statement

Whoever runs the policy now, they must keep you informed about it. Providers send annual statements telling you how much your fund is worth⁹. The statement is the starting point for understanding an old policy: it shows the current value, and from it you can ask the provider for the details that matter just as much, such as the charges being deducted and how the fund has performed.

MoneyHelper, the government-backed guidance body, notes that personal pensions are usually run by insurance companies or investment companies, and that the earliest you can take your pension is usually age 55, rising to 57 from April 2028, unless you need to retire early due to ill health¹⁰. When you contact the provider, it is worth asking specifically about:

• the charges on the policy, including any charges for transferring out
• whether the fund is a with-profits fund and what bonuses have been added
• whether the policy carries guarantees, such as a guaranteed annuity rate
• what the transfer value would be, which by law must be fair to you¹¹
• what options exist for taking money, and from what age

If you cannot find a statement at all, the first step is to check whether you have a certificate or whether your old payslips reveal your payments into an occupational pension scheme¹². The dedicated guide to finding lost pensions walks through this step by step.

With-profits policies: how bonuses build up

Many older personal pensions invested in with-profits funds. These work differently from ordinary investment funds. The with-profits approach smooths returns: rather than passing each year's market movements straight through to the policyholder, the provider adds returns to the policy as bonuses over time. The ombudsman service, which handles complaints about savings and endowments as well as pensions, describes the related endowment structure as one where you pay a regular premium and the policy pays out after a fixed period or when you die¹³.

The bonus structure is what defines a with-profits policy. The provider adds bonuses to the policy's value over its life, and the total of those bonuses, plus the original sum, is what the policy is notionally worth. The catch, and the reason this page gives with-profits its own sections, is that the notional value and the amount actually paid can differ if the policy is cashed in early, because of a Market Value Reduction.

The ombudsman's complaint data shows this is not a theoretical risk. Complaints about transfers from personal pensions include advisers failing to disclose market value adjustments on with-profits funds when recommending a move⁵. So for anyone with an old with-profits pension, two questions matter before anything else: what bonuses have been added, and whether an MVR would apply to the payout.

Market Value Reductions: when your payout can be cut

A Market Value Reduction, sometimes called a Market Value Adjustment, is a reduction a with-profits provider can apply when a policy is cashed in or transferred early. The stated fund value, made up of the premiums paid plus the bonuses added, is not guaranteed to be what leaves the fund: the provider can reduce the payout so that it reflects the actual position of the with-profits fund. The ombudsman's list of transfer complaint issues includes market value adjustments on with-profits funds as something that should have been disclosed to people before they moved their pensions⁵.

In practice, an MVR matters at the moment of exit. A policyholder who leaves a with-profits fund at the wrong time, typically by transferring out or surrendering the policy before its intended end date, can receive less than the figure shown on the statement. Someone who stays until the policy's natural endpoint, or takes benefits in the way the policy was designed for, may avoid the reduction, though the exact rules are set by each provider and policy.

This is why the transfer value question matters so much for old policies. When you ask a provider for a transfer value, the figure they give must by law be fair to you¹¹. If an MVR has been applied, or would be applied, that should be reflected in what you are told. The ombudsman has upheld complaints where people were not told about these adjustments before transferring⁵, which tells you both that the risk is real and that there is a route to redress if it was not explained.

When an MVR does not apply

Market Value Reductions are tied to early exit, so the first thing to establish with an old policy is what counts as "early" for its purposes. A with-profits policy is designed to pay out at a set point: the ombudsman describes the endowment version as paying out after a fixed period or when you die¹³. Reaching that fixed period, or the policy's maturity, is the point at which the provider's smoothing has done its full job, and providers' with-profits terms generally frame reductions as applying when policies are ended ahead of that point.

The practical steps for a policyholder are the same whatever the fine print:

• Ask the provider, in writing, whether an MVR currently applies to the policy and what it would be.
• Ask whether the MVR falls away at a particular date, and what that date is for your policy.
• Ask for the transfer value and the maturity value side by side, remembering the transfer value must be fair to you by law¹¹.
• Check whether the policy carries guarantees, such as a guaranteed annuity rate, that are only available if you stay⁵.

If the provider's answers are unclear, or if you were already advised to transfer without an MVR being mentioned, that is complaint territory, covered later in this page.

Your options from age 55, rising to 57

The earliest you can usually take a private pension, including some workplace pensions, is age 55, increasing to age 57 from April 2028². MoneyHelper gives the same rule for personal pensions, with the same ill-health exception¹⁰.

Once you reach that age, the main options for a defined contribution pot, including an old personal pension, are the standard ones: taking the whole pot in one go, taking adjustable income through drawdown, taking lump sums, or buying an annuity. Pension Wise, the government's free guidance service, sets these out, and its guidance on taking the whole pot notes that you might not be able to transfer your pension if you have a share of an ex-partner's pension following a divorce, or a scheme with special features or guarantees like a Guaranteed Minimum Pension³. Citizens Advice adds that you might be able to get your pension sooner if you are retiring due to ill health¹⁴.

The ill-health exception is important for older policyholders whose health has changed. You cannot usually take money from a workplace pension scheme until you are at least 55, unless you are seriously ill¹⁵, and the same early-access exception on ill-health grounds applies to personal and stakeholder pensions¹⁶. Public sector schemes have their own rules: in the NHS you can only apply for ill-health retirement if you are under your normal pension age, or over it with life expectancy of less than 12 months¹⁷, and in the Armed Forces you can apply if you are unable to work full time due to permanent physical or mental ill-health¹⁸. For people past State Pension age who are not working, a State Pension may be claimable from age over 66¹⁹. The guides on taking money from a pension, Pension Wise and ill-health retirement cover each route in detail.

Tax on taking money out, including the £10,000 MPAA limit

Taking money out of an old pension has tax consequences that shape the order in which things are done. The key rule is the money purchase annual allowance. If you take taxable money from your defined contribution pension, such as a single lump sum, the £60,000 annual limit on how much you can still pay in and get tax relief on reduces to £10,000³. The same £10,000 limit applies where you take money after your pension has been put into drawdown²⁰. The exception is a small pension pot worth £10,000 or less taken in one go, which usually will not trigger the reduced allowance³.

This matters directly for the question of whether to keep paying into an old policy. You usually get tax relief on money you pay into a pension⁹, so contributions can still be worthwhile, but once taxable money has been taken, the £10,000 money purchase annual allowance caps how much relief-at-source saving is possible each year. Go over it and the excess faces a tax charge. The narrow guide to the money purchase annual allowance explains the mechanics.

Other tax points worth knowing:

• The State Pension is paid without tax taken off; instead your tax code is usually changed so the extra tax is paid from other income².
• Pension Credit has a capital lower limit of £10,000²¹.
• If you already get means-tested benefits, they could be reduced or stopped if you do not take money out of your pension that you are entitled to take, once you are at State Pension age¹⁴.

The guides on how pension income is taxed, emergency tax on withdrawals and how pensions affect benefits cover these in full.

Transferring out can cost you guarantees

Transferring an old pension is usually possible, but it is usually permanent. The FCA states that a pension transfer usually cannot be undone, so always make sure you will be better off before committing¹. The Police pension scheme in Scotland puts the same point bluntly: once a payment has been sent to another scheme on your behalf, the transfer cannot be reversed²².

The list of what a transfer can cost you is long. Government guidance warns you may have to make payments to the new scheme, pay a fee to make the transfer, lose any right you had to take your pension at a certain age, lose any fixed or enhanced protection, or lose any right you had to take a tax-free lump sum of more than 25 per cent of your pot²³. Some old pensions also charge high fees if you transfer them out, and the transfer value could be different to your pension value if your old provider applies an exit fee²³. Against that, the FCA notes a transfer might save money if the other scheme has lower fees, give access to different investment options, and give more options for taking your money¹.

Old policies carry specific guarantees that transfer can extinguish:

• Guaranteed annuity rates, which can convert the pot into a higher guaranteed income than available elsewhere¹.
• Guaranteed Minimum Pension entitlement from contracting out, which can carry its own revaluation rules and can block a transfer³.
• With-profits smoothing and bonus entitlement, where an exit can trigger a Market Value Reduction⁵.

Some situations restrict transfers outright. A share of an ex-partner's pension following a divorce may not be transferable: in the NHS Scotland scheme, a former partner becomes a credit member whose share remains within the scheme and cannot be transferred out¹². Some providers insist you change a workplace money purchase pension to a personal pension before taking the income drawdown option²⁵. And where a company scheme has been taken over by the Pension Protection Fund, transfer to a defined contribution scheme is generally not possible⁷. The comparison of combining pension pots or keeping them separate and the guide to transferring between providers set out the decision in full.

Complaints and getting free help

If an old policy has been mishandled, whether by the original provider, the closed-book firm now running it, or an adviser who recommended a transfer, there are free routes to redress. The Financial Ombudsman Service received 931 new complaints about personal pensions in the first quarter of 2026/27²⁶, and it can tell a pension provider to put things right, for example by paying compensation into your pension plan or straight to you, and compensation for distress or inconvenience²⁷. In one published case about a personal pension plan, the ombudsman found the plan itself had been suitable and offered good value at the time in terms of competitive charges²⁸, which shows each case turns on its own facts.

The Pensions Ombudsman handles complaints about pension schemes and can consider an unusually wide range of issues, including guaranteed annuity rates, with-profits issues, transfers, charges and fees, and death benefits⁴. Its most common new complaint topics are contributions, retirement benefits and calculation of benefits²⁹. You have the right to refer your complaint to The Pensions Ombudsman free of charge⁴.

The usual sequence is:

1. Complain to the provider or adviser first and get their final response.
2. Take the complaint to the ombudsman with full details of the complaint, the final response from any party at fault, any relevant correspondence, and copies of the policies and scheme rules if you have them³⁰.
3. If you complained to the Financial Ombudsman Service about advice to transfer your pension before a redress scheme started, you do not need to do anything else³¹.

Free guidance on your options, before any decision, is available from Pension Wise, and the page on complaining about a pension provider covers the process in detail.

When the policyholder dies

An old pension policy does not disappear when the holder dies. What happens to it depends on the policy's own rules, any nomination the holder made, and the type of benefits involved. The Pensions Ombudsman handles disputes about death benefit lump sums, and asks for full details of the complaint, the final response from any party at fault, and any relevant correspondence and policy documents³⁰. Families can use the government's Tell Us Once service when reporting a death, and the Pension Tracing Service to find details of the person's personal or workplace pensions³³.

Some rules are worth knowing in advance:

• State Pension payments generally stop when you die, but a spouse or civil partner might be able to inherit some of it².
• Where a divorce led to an attachment order, payments cease on the death of the former spouse³⁴.
• In Scotland, an earmarking order ceases to apply if the former spouse or civil partner dies before the member retires³⁵.
• A with-profits or endowment-type policy is designed to pay out after a fixed period or when you die¹³.

Because death benefits depend heavily on nominations and policy terms, the guides on what happens to your pension when you die, nominating a beneficiary and pensions and inheritance tax are worth reading alongside this page.