Sorry that this isn't exactly consulting-related, but I thought some of you might be financially astute enough to know the answer - I don't:I'm mid-30s in small consultancy. Was thinking of paying AVCs to company pension plan but then thought: may have several other employers and over the next 30 years this company may be bought, may merge, may disband... how insulated are pension schemes from all of those things? Is my pot safe whatever happens to company?

It depends what kind of "company pension plan" you are enrolled in.Your AVC pot is always independent of the company's fortunes. The underlying plan will likely be similarly independent as I highly doubt your small firm will be offering a final salary (DB) scheme.

Ok, thanks. Yes, it's defined contribution, not defined benefit. The money goes into various equity funds.What I don't quite grasp is, if the company disappeared during the next few decades, who would administer the pension? Who would I go to for it in due course? At the moment correspondence comes from an in-house pension guy.I guess quite a few other people must end up collecting various small pensions over time given the hopscotch nature of many consulting careers.

Administration of funds is distinct from ownership of them - if the company went bust, you would simply have to administer them yourself or transfer them into a vehicle administered by someone else.More to the point, it would be exceptional if a small consultancy really was doing pension fund administration in-house. More likely, they act as first point of contact and channel for forms, as a front-end for an outsourced administration service. In practical terms, your contact point would revert to the real administrator in the first instance if your company went bust.

Many thanks.