James Hay will take applications for protected rights from 1st October 2008

James Hay, the UK's largest Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP) provider, today announces that it will accept applications for protected rights into its entire product range from 1st October 2008.

This includes the James Hay eSIPP, James Hay Select SIPP, James Hay Private Client SIPP and James Hay Wrap SIPP.

Historically, SIPPs have not been permitted to contract out and could not hold protected rights funds with most of this money currently being held in insured plans. From 1 October 2008, new regulation allows individuals to hold all of their pension funds under one SIPP and self-invest both protected and non-protected rights.

The ability to transfer protected rights pensions to a SIPP has the following benefits:

1) Greater investment choice as SIPPs allow a wide range of investment options so customers can easily allocate into different funds or asset classes. James Hay has over 1300 funds available and offers specialist structured products.

2) Greater control and access to retirement funds when taking benefits.

3) The ability to consolidate allows customers to easily manage and view their pension assets in one place, which can lead to time and administrative savings. Depending on portfolio size and charges, this may reduce the cost of managing a pension.

4) Protected rights funds may have been poor performing in the past with restrictive options. The greater investment choice provided by a SIPP allows customers to access better performing investments.

Andy Pennie, Marketing Director at James Hay commented: "Previous protected rights solutions through life offices were often very restrictive in terms of investment choice with many funds delivering below average investment returns.

"The great news for IFAs and their clients is they can now actively move protected rights money to SIPP solutions to take advantage of the greater investment choice.

"The exclusion of protected rights from SIPP policies has been an obvious omission for some time and James Hay, as the largest SIPP provider with over £12 billion invested through its various SIPP products is very excited about being part of this market evolution."

James Hay SIPP is backed by Santander, one of the 5 largest banks in the world, which was recently awarded the Best Global Bank award by Euromoney. James Hay has won over 22 awards for its SIPP product and service in the last six years.