Gilts are now falling in value. Gilt yields are going up. Annuities are getting cheaper. If you are naturally long of annuities (e.g. you have a defined benefit pension scheme) you should think about crystallizing its value now. You can do this by transferring to a SIPP or a SSAS.
Of course you should take professional financial advice before doing something like this, but you should at least think through the implications of remaining in a defined benefit scheme. It is quite likely that inflation will increase in the next five to ten years. Certainly the drop in gilt yields is telling us that the market expects this. This means that if you have left the employment that the pension is related to, you will lose out, as your pension will be based on your nominal salary at the time of leaving, which you can expect to go down even more rapidly than usual in times of high inflation.
As you might guess, I am involved in doing a transfer of this kind but I find that the actuaries who run the scheme in question have an inexplicable technical problem in providing the transfer value. How convenient that this should occur just at the time that the this transfer value is in steep decline. Of course, without the transfer valuation, no transfer is possible.
