In Reply to: Re: Protect your Equitable Life AVC fund by ... posted by Deborah Young on 20 August 2002 at 13:10:59:
>>: The reasons for this are that when the regulations were introduced in 1999 the ability to receive AVCs early were laid down in the form that schemes who agreed to provide the option had to provide the benefit by way of 'income drawdown' i.e. not an immediate annuity. This type of arrangement is extremely complex and costly to administer. The Trustee also at that time declined to implement other 'easements' for the same reason e.g deferment of AVCs.<<
Deborah,
To be frank - the answer from Adrian was well constructed and meant to give you "an impression" rather than an acceptable reason for not helping, and the last sentence says it all ie they won't even allow deferment even though all that will cost is receiving the cash now and holding on to it until you're ready to take a pension. The trustees could have been helpful if they wanted to.
Suggest you consider the AVC fund in the light of your total pension plans and carefully consider both options ie taking all your pension now (see the rest of this thread) or leaving it till later when EL might be in a different situation and when the IBM situation (annuity rates and other considerations) might change.
If you want to discuss options further - suggest you post your questions and I and others will try to help with outlineing some of the arguments.
G.