Income drawdown

Income Release lets customers flexibly access their pension savings by moving some or all of their money into drawdown.

Rated 5 Star by Defaqto, Income Release provides one of the highest quality offerings in the market, with a range of tax-free cash and income options.

Whether your clients are preparing for retirement or already taking an income, we want to make it simple for you to recommend Royal London.

• New individual pension customers only need £15,000 of pension savings to start using Income Release, and existing pension customers only need £10,000
• They can continue to save into their plan after taking tax-free cash and/or income payments
• They aren't charged to start using Income Release
• Our Beneficiary Income Release option is available on the death of the planholder
• They can choose to leave money for loved ones when they die
• Workplace pension customers can continue to save into their workplace pension as long as they leave a minimum of £200 in their plan
• Our income management facility, Income Tap lets clients invest in a low-risk fund while they take an income from their plan. You can find out more about Income Tap in our client leaflet.

And, we aim to pay your clients' tax-free cash within five working days.

If the annual management charge for regular contributions is lower on a client's Royal London workplace pension plan, they'll keep this when they move into income drawdown.

Our Pension Portfolio technical guide has more information about Income Release.

Download our technical guide

We have five Governed Retirement Income Portfolios (GRIPs) to choose from, depending on your client's attitude to risk. Each GRIP aims to help your clients achieve a sustainable income in retirement.

With a diversified mix of assets, the GRIPs are designed to be resilient and cope with market shocks. Actively managed by the Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) multi-asset team, these portfolios include regular rebalancing and tactical asset allocation changes.

Our Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) review our Governed Range on an ongoing basis to make sure each portfolio continues to meet its objectives.

As well as aiming to deliver the best possible returns, our investment solutions all come with responsible investment and governance built in.

More about GRIPs

We pride ourselves on offering you and your clients a considered, fully supportive service that empowers and works with you to support your clients.

Part of what makes our service award-winning is our dedicated contacts, who'll manage our relationship with you. They'll also work alongside our expert teams - including our Business Support Unit - to make sure you get the support you need, when you need it.

Get pensions support

Our online tools help you save time and cut down on admin so you can focus on supporting your clients, thanks to:

• Our client review service, which helps you conduct a cost-effective review service. You can also prepare a personalised discussion aid on the performance of your client's plan for your review meetings
• Our financial planning tool, which helps you create a financial plan that gives a full picture of an individual's sources of income and how their spending needs could change over time
• Our drawdown governance service, which lets you create branded reports to help you track, discuss and manage the ongoing sustainability of your customers' income.

You can access these tools by logging into our online service.

Requesting Income Release payments

If your clients want to request an income, use one of the following methods to submit a request:

• For one-off tax-free cash payments, or to set up, change or stop regular income payments, use our online income release form. For eligible plans, you can also make a payment request via our online service.
• For a one-off taxable income payment from an existing Income Release plan use this form.

More about our online service