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Why is my forecast value so low?
Why is my forecast value so low?

If your pension forecast value estimate is low, there could be many reasons why. Discover Penfold's top three in our FAQ guide.

Lydia Bennett avatar
Written by Lydia Bennett
Updated over 2 years ago

For customers whose forecast value is low, this may be one of three reasons:

A) You haven't added a monthly contribution

B) You've not added the value of your workplace and any other private pensions you have elsewhere

C) You've not added the state pension into your forecast

A) Don't have a monthly recurring contribution set up

If you don’t have a monthly payment set up, it means your entire retirement income is based on the value of your pension as it stands. Withdrawing this value over decades from your retirement age, means that your retirement income might be too small to cover the basics.

Increasing or decreasing the number under "I make personal monthly payments of" will give you an idea of how your retirement income could change depending on your regular payments into your pension.

B) Haven't added the value of your pensions elsewhere

Forecasting your retirement accurately relies on us having a complete picture of your savings. By adding the value of your current workplace pension, and any other private pensions you have outside of Penfold, your retirement income figure will give a more accurate representation of what you could get in the future.

Tap the button to the right of "What's included in my forecast?" to see a breakdown of all the pensions currently included in your forecast. From here, you can tap the plus icon to add the value of your other pensions into the calculation.

Adding the value of your pensions doesn’t combine them over to Penfold!

C) Haven’t added the state pension into your forecast

The State pension is a payment from the government to you when you reach State pension age, currently 66 but scheduled to rise in the coming years.

You can add the State pension to Your Forecast to get an understanding of what your retirement income will look like with this factored in. The State pension currently pays £9,339 a year, which assumes you’ve paid full national insurance contributions for 30 years.

Please know, if you add the state pension to your forecast, it’ll **lock your chosen retirement age to your predicted State pension age. If you're still a few years from retirement, you won't be eligible until you're 67 or 68. In other words, you can't include the State pension if you plan on retiring before 66.

Just tap the slider to add or remove the State pension to your forecast.

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