As per our previous articles on savings accounts, for long term savings, Regular Saver Investment accounts are very attractive and easy to set up:

  1. Set up a Direct Debit amount & date.
  1. Choose your investment fund or funds.
  1. Your monthly savings go into your account & get invested into your chosen fund.

What are they?

Accounts aimed at providing savers with growth on their money, beyond what is available on deposit with banks & credit unions.

This is not investing to ‘get rich’. This is investing to get slow and steady growth on your savings over time.

The Funds

All of the large Life & Pensions companies offer Regular Saver Investment accounts, and they all offer a range of funds for savers to choose from. What ‘the fund’ is doing, is pooling the money of like-minded savers, and investing it across a wide range of shares & bonds, across a wide range of companies & countries, to achieve a targeted range of growth.

Taking Zurich for example, as we like their funds. They have funds targeting a lower, more conservative return, and more aggressive funds targeting higher returns each year. The trade-off for trying to achieve a higher return is that in years when economies & markets perform poorly, the drop in your investment will be larger than in a more conservative fund choice.

To simplify it, there is a rating system of 1-7, 1 being the most conservative & 7 being the most aggressive. Each fund rating will indicate the range it is aiming to operate within. Below is an example with Zurich:

Zurich fund performance

Correct as of 26/02/24.

 

 

 

 

 

You can see that one has a rating of 4, and the other 6. Over 3 years ‘Cautiously Managed’ has achieved an average annual return of 3.57% vs 8.6% in the ‘Dynamic Fund’. Over 10 years it is an average annual return of 5.9% & 10.57% respectively.

When you look at the individual years (below), you see the trade-off…. While the Dynamic Fund gains more on average each year than the Cautiously Managed Fund, the negative years are worse. The fund falls in value by more in poor performing years, vs a more conservative equivalent. Historically on markets, 1 in 5 years on average are negative performing years.

 

 

 

 

How To Choose One?

This is where your advisor / broker comes in. They will help to ascertain your ability and appetite for investment risk, along with your savings objectives and recommend a suitable fund. You then need to review your situation every year to see what has changed, how the account is doing and make any changes necessary, due to changes in your circumstances etc.

Accessibility

You can cash in your investment account in part or in full whenever you wish, however as they are designed for long term saving, there are penalties for withdrawing your money in the first 3 years. 3% in year 1, 2% in year 2 and 1% in year 3. After that there are no charges or penalties for withdrawals. On requesting your money it will usually be sent to you in 7-10 days. You have the choice of taking back the full balance or just withdrawing some of the money.

 

If you would like to talk to us about your savings goals and if an investment account is the right move for you, get in touch. We are here and happy to help people, whether they are individuals, families, or companies. If you have savings then you are doing the hard part, what you need to ensure is that your money is working as hard as you did to earn it.

Watch out for the rest of our Savings Series articles, delving into the different options in more detail!