More than a third of SIPP investors – 34 per cent – said that they were satisfied with the growth of their pension pot compared with just 17 per cent from standard pension holders. While this may be viewed as a hollow victory, since the majority of investors remain dissatisfied with their SIPP, there are far fewer who are completely disillusioned.
Of those polled, 29 per cent of SIPP investors said their pension pot had fallen short of expectations "by a long way" compared with 42 per cent of typical pension investors.
Like with a personal pension, SIPPs come with attractive tax benefits. Contributions are tax-deductible and investments within the SIPP are income and capital gains-tax free.
However, unlike a personal pension, which may be limited to a range of funds determined by the provider, a SIPP can be invested wherever the holder wants, including individual shares, funds, bonds, derivatives and even commercial property.
AWD Chase de Vere’s Patrick Connolly believes that this extra level of freedom and convenience, as well as the knowledge and understanding of SIPP investors, is contributing to the greater satisfaction levels.
"Those in stakeholder or group personal pension schemes only get a statement through the post once every six months and tend not to take a great deal of notice of how or why their portfolio is performing the way it is," he said.
"SIPP investors take a much closer interest and can check performance online in real time and rebalance their portfolios easily over the internet to suit the economic environment."
Kerry Nelson, managing director of Nexus IFA, says that personal pensions are fraught with limitations that make SIPPs a more attractive proposition.
"Older style personal pensions have onerous charging structures even before you consider performance," she explained. "AMCs tend to be higher and it can be an administrative nightmare if you want to rebalance your investments."
"The whole point of a SIPP is that you are completely unshackled. You can access the best of the best funds and this can make a difference of 6 or 7 per cent a year. Coupled with the convenience of being able to manage your pension online via low-cost fund supermarkets, you have a really attractive proposition.”
She added: "You can’t expect to buy a pension when you are 18 and never look at it again and expect it to meet the projections. The way SIPPs are structured really encourages regular review."
While the lack of a wide selection of funds has been a problem for personal pension contributors in the past, Connolly says the industry has made great leaps forward to try and improve the range that is on offer.
"There may still be a hangover from the days when you’d only get a handful of funds that you could gain access to," he said.
"But personal pensions have come a long way to offer a range of funds that is suitable for more people. In the future I’d expect personal pensions to become much more comparable to SIPPs."
However, Nelson thinks the range on offer remains limited at best: "Personal pensions are likely to be left behind because the regulators are huge fans of the stakeholder model. They want to protect investors from making too many mistakes of their own."