In the Sunday Telegraph a couple of weeks ago the money section announced "Tens of thousands of pension savers have put billions of pounds into pension funds that consistently under-perform."

You will be aware of our general disrespect for the media, but in this instance they are right and it's an area that we have been working on to try to educate people over the last two years or so.

The whole problem stems from the fact that most people put money into their pension and just leave it there. For example, Standard Life now has over £3.5bn under management. The vast majority of the money has been there since it was invested. Very little of it has been managed to ensure that the most is made of it. The deep-rooted problem is that most people do not think of their pension as an investment, and yet for most people, apart from their home, it is their biggest asset. How many people do you know who have £20,000, £50,000, £100,000 or even much more in a pension and yet could not tell you how it has performed so far this year, or in what asset classes it was invested, or even what the charges are? If you were investing, say, £100,000, do you not think you would look at this information and then manage the money actively? Why then should a pension be so different?

Unfortunately for most people, it is. Most people simply do not manage their pension. Most people also pay far too much in pension charges. For example, we recently reviewed a pension for a new client who had over £650,000 invested in it. The existing pension had averaged a return of just 3.2% over the last five years. Only 3.2%. On top of that he was being charged 3.5% pa on most of the money in the pension. This led to a 0.3% loss each year! By simply transferring the pension to a low-cost provider the annual costs were reduced from 3.5% to just 0.5%. A saving of 3% each year; that's 3% each and every year.

We urge you to speak with friends and family who have pensions on which no benefits are being taken, and ask them to have their fund and its management reviewed. It is very rare that this review process will not lead to a significant improvement in the ultimate value of their pension pot.