A firend of mine (40 yrs) is very confused about his pension planning. He has been working for a number of different international firms in the UK and now he has been here for a number of years. He has no idea what he should be doing in terms of my pension planning for retirement. As he had gaps in employment, he will probably need to make additional contributions but has no idea how much and for how long. Also if he stays in Switzerland until retirement age, how much can he expect to receive at retirement as a % of his salary? How can he find out what are the best pension plans and what is the best way to plan for retirement?

Also what about the state pensions that he should be getting from the UK and Swiss governements? Are there any advisors in Zurich who can help? Any websiters or links, books? Please help? Thanks.

These topics are complicated enough without doing it via bush telegraph. If he won't spend the time writing the post himself, he may struggle to find someone willing to spend the time writing the answer. D

I can help but my rate would be 200 CHF an hour given the effort/knowledge required/involved. Interested? 1st meeting/call/email (1 hr effort) free.

Bear in mind there's a lot to consider including but not limited to:

-Currency fluctuations
-entitlement built up in UK/elsewhere
-UK vs. CH systems
-expected "quality of life" level at retirement
-current pension arrangements in CH

Upon determining the facts of your friend I can then provide a referral to a specialist.

The UK website at http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/ipc/home.asp is a good start. When I wrote them an email asking about my situation, they gave me very useful advice and sent me a detailed statement of my British contributions, even though the last one was nearly 30 years ago.

I can help a little with the UK part of the question.

Your friends company schemes are likely to be either final salary or defined contribution schemes.

The advice I have had is:

Final salary schemes. If these were accrued whilst working for established companies (think ICI etc) then HOLD onto them. They are not as vulnerable to market forces unless the company itself raided the pension scheme.

Defined contribution schemes. This is where both you and the company invest money in a scheme set up by a third party on the companies behalf. For every 100,000 pounds you put into this pot, this will give you a pension of roughly 6,000 pounds per annum. If your friend has a number of these schemes it may be worth consolidating them by transferring them to the best performing schemes.

Also they will need to look at their state pensions.

Add all these things up and you will get an idea of what the total pensions will be and in my case be shocked at how little it will be. ( In my first job I worked for ICI for 3 years and will have a pension of 2000 pounds per year and then have a defined contribution pot from a further two schemes which will generate a pension or 8 to 10,000 pounds per year.)

The daily telegraph website finance pages are a good place to search for advice

Best

Annie

Can anyone tell me ...

Suppose you have N years contributions to the british state pension, and you have been living here in CH for many years. Are you still entitled to receive your british pension?

With this in mind, does it make sense to make additional NI payments to the UK pension service to bring your UK contributions up to date? (I would need to continue to do so for 10 years or so to get the full entitlement)

Thanks.

I found my first answer here...

http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/...happens-if.asp

sorry for the noise. Can anyone offer advice on the second contributions question?