If you want to retire early looking for the best early retirement pensions could help you achieve you goal. Here's how to compare UK pension scheme early retirement deals so you can afford to finish work and begin enjoying retirement ahead of schedule.
For many people in the UK the thought of retiring early feels like little more than a pipe dream, but with careful financial planning and the best early UK retirement pension it is still more than possible to give up work early.
Here’s how to find the best pension fund to support your early retirement plans.
What are the rules?
Presently according to UK pension rules early retirement is open to anyone regardless of their age.
However, while it's possible to retire at any age there are certain restrictions and limitations that dictate when you can start to claim both the State Pension and any company or personal pension plans you have in place.
From 2010, the age that you could start to draw on early retirement pensions was increased from 50 to 55, while you can only get your State Pension once you’ve reach the minimum State Pension age.
Together this means that you can’t cash in money you’ve invested in your personal fund or your state pension (unless you are ill) before you turn 55.
Finding a pension plan
Once you’ve decided you want to start saving into a pension with a view to working towards early retirement, you will need to look for the best pension plan for your circumstances.
As with any personal pension your final retirement pension rates will be determined in large part by the performance of your pension fund. So checking how each pension plan you're considering has performed in the past, while no guarantee of future performance, may give you some indication as to how well the scheme is run.
For more help and a step by step guide to choosing a pension, try following our Action Plan: How to get a Pension.
Check the fees
After comparing the performance of suitable pension funds and excluding those that offer an unsuitable amount of risk you will need to check the management fees charged by the fund manager.
While management fees alone shouldn’t be the most influential factor when deciding which account is the best pension fund for you, with fees up to 1.5% of your annual investment, they can make a big difference to the profitability of your pension.
Choose the early retirement pension scheme that combines investments you're interested in with a good track record and low fees.
You can compare the top 10 early retirement pensions and their fees using our UK retirement pension comparison table.
