Investing in the stock market made easy
Our Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA is a tax-free savings account that allows you to pay in or take out as much money as you like, whenever you like.
Unlike savings accounts that pay regular interest, this account invests in the stock market, with the aim of giving better growth over the long term. Of course, the stock market can go down as well as up.
Our ISA could suit you if you want to see growth but also need flexibility – it allows you to get hold of your money or pay in more whenever you want to.
How it works
Your money goes into our Unity Mutual Equity Fund, which is invested in over 600 UK companies to track the average performance of the stock market. This saves you from having to make any tricky investment decisions, and helps spread the risk by investing in a large number of companies.
Our account has a low annual management charge of only 1%.
We can’t give you any advice on whether our Stocks & Shares ISA is right for you. We can only give you factual information.
Any questions?
Call (0161) 214 4628 (9am to 5pm Mon to Thurs and 9am to 4pm Friday)
Or email insure@unitymutual.co.uk
At a glance
- A tax-free Individual Savings Account (ISA).
- To get started you’ll need to invest £250 or set up a direct debit of £25 a month.
- You can withdraw money and reinvest it in the same tax year without affecting your tax-free ISA allowance.
- Your money is invested in stocks and shares. As the value can fall as well as rise, you could get back less than has been paid in.
- You can access your money when you need it, but you should consider this a medium to long term investment of at least 5 years.
- This product is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
- Details
- Performance
- FAQs
Please read through these documents to make sure the Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA is right for you.
The Flexible ISA is a type of Individual Savings Account which allows tax-free investments to be made, subject to qualifying conditions laid down by HMRC regulations.
Our Flexible ISA takes advantage of the HMRC flexibility rules which allow you to access your money, should you need it, and subsequently reinvest in the same tax year without losing your ISA allowance.
The eligibility rules to open a Flexible ISA require that:
- you are aged between 18 or over, and
- you are resident in the UK, or a Crown employee (or their spouse/civil partner) working overseas.
You cannot hold a Flexible ISA with, or on behalf of, someone else.
You can make contributions into this ISA up to the HMRC ISA contribution limit in each tax year. The current limit can be found in our Contribution Limits page.
However, if you have more than one type of ISA the limit applies to all contributions. It is anticipated that this limit will increase each year in line with Inflation.
The minimum contribution is £25 per month or an initial lump sum of £250, and contributions can be stopped or changed at any time without penalty.
You can split your ISA allowance for a tax year across the different types of ISA, but you can only open one of each type in the tax year.
For example, you could:
- Invest £10,000 in a Sticks and Shares ISA
- Invest £4,000 in a Lifetime ISA;
- Invest £6,000 in a Cash ISA; and
Your Flexible ISA does not close when the tax year ends, you can choose to continue investing in the account or open another. Either way your savings will retain their tax-free basis for as long as you keep them in your Flexible ISA.
The Flexible ISA also takes advantage of current HMRC regulations, allowing you to withdraw funds without losing any of your tax free ISA allowance for the current tax year.
Flexibility provides you with the facility to take money out of your ISA at any point, subject to the criteria detailed in section 14 of the Terms & Conditions, and re-invest it in the same tax year (by 5 April), without it reducing your current year‘s tax free ISA allowance.
The following example helps to explain flexibility in practice:
You have £40,000 in your ISA which is made up of £35,000 from previous years investments and £5,000 from money deposited in the current tax year, allowing for a further investment of up to £15,000 using the current year‘s ISA allowance. Flexibility means you could withdraw £10,000, which would then enable you to invest a further £25,000 in this tax year: the £10,000 you took out, plus the remaining £15,000 allowance.
The maximum you can subscribe to the Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA in a tax year is dependent upon the contribution limit - or 'ISA Allowance' - set by HMRC for that tax year. The current limit can be found in the Contribution Limits page.
The minimum contribution is £25 per month or an initial lump sum of £250, and contributions can be stopped or changed at any time without penalty.
Contributions can be made in a number of ways;
- regular monthly payments by direct debit or standing order
- payments by cheque - made payable to ‘Unity Mutual’ with your name and ISA number on the back
- payments by direct money transfer - ensuring your ISA number is quoted in the transfer
The minimum additional contribution is £25, and contributions can be stopped or changed at any time without penalty.
The money is invested in the Unity Mutual Equity Fund. The investment objective of this Fund is to track the capital performance of the UK stock market by investing in over 600 UK companies. As the Fund’s investments are spread across a wide range of companies, the risk of it being affected by a single underperforming company or sector is reduced.
The contributions you pay are used to purchase units in the Fund (refer to sections ‘1. Definitions’ and ’18. Unit Prices’ within the Terms & Conditions).
The investment performance of the Unity Mutual Equity Fund will determine the value of your ISA.
The illustrations below give a guide to how much your investment could be worth in the years ahead in accordance with requirements set by the FCA for illustration purposes. What you will receive depends on how much is invested, the actual rate at which the investment grows and the tax treatment of the investment.
A. Regular monthly payments
Assuming that £50 per month is invested for 20 years, the table below shows how much your investment would be worth, after charges, if it grows each year by:
|
2% |
5% |
8% |
|
£13,200 |
£18,100 |
£25,300 |
B. Lump sum investment payments
Assuming that a single payment of £5,000 is invested for 20 years, the table below shows how much your investment would be worth, after charges, if it grows each year by:
|
2% |
5% |
8% |
|
£6,080 |
£10,800 |
£19,000 |
Please note that for both illustrations:
These figures are only examples and are not guaranteed. What you will get back depends on how your investment grows and the tax treatment of the investment. You could get back more or less than the figures quoted.
Do not forget that inflation will reduce what your child can buy with the proceeds of their ISA in the future.
We will take a management charge equivalent to 1% per annum of the Fund. A proportion of this charge is deducted weekly from the value of the Fund; it is the only charge made by us on the ISA.
For example, if the value of the Fund was £1,000 throughout the year, we would deduct £10 in charges for that year. Other charges may apply as outlined in section 16 of the Terms & Condition.
A. Regular monthly payments
The effect of these charges on your monthly payment of £50, assuming an average rate of growth of 5% per year, is set out below:
|
At end of year |
Investments to date |
Effect of deductions to date |
What the value of the Flexible ISA might be |
|
1 |
£600 |
£4 |
£612 |
|
2 |
£1,200 |
£23 |
£1,240 |
|
3 |
£1,800 |
£32 |
£1,910 |
|
4 |
£2,400 |
£56 |
£2,600 |
|
5 |
£3,000 |
£95 |
£3,310 |
|
10 |
£6,000 |
£410 |
£7,340 |
|
15 |
£9,000 |
£1,095 |
£12,200 |
|
20 |
£10,200 |
£2,273 |
£18,100 |
The last line in the table shows that over 20 years the total charges could amount to £730.
Putting it another way, this would have the effect of bringing investment growth from 5% a year down to 3.92% a year.
B. Lump sum investment payments
The effect of these charges on your lump sum of £5,000, assuming an average rate of growth of 5% per year, is set out overleaf:
|
At end of year |
Investments to date |
Effect of deductions to date |
What the value of the Flexible ISA might be |
|
1 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£60 |
|
2 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£113 |
|
3 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£178 |
|
4 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£238 |
|
5 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£311 |
|
10 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£774 |
|
15 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£1,445 |
|
20 |
£3,000 |
£5,000 |
£2,466 |
The last line in the table shows that over 20 years the total charges could amount to £1,076.
Putting it another way, this would have the effect of bringing investment growth from 5% a year down to 3.92% a year.
We will issue a statement annually which will show the value of your ISA.
However, at any time you can always visit the 'My Fund Value' page within the 'Customer Centre' of our website where you can get an up-to-date value.
You can also contact us at any time to ask for a valuation.
You can make any number of withdrawals from your Flexible ISA at any time without losing any tax benefits. See section 14 of the Terms & Conditions.
The Flexible ISA allows you to make withdrawals from current and previous year‘s subscriptions and pay them back in (within that tax year) without it counting towards your current year‘s ISA allowance.
If you withdraw funds in one subscription year and reinvest them in a subsequent subscription year, they will count towards that year‘s ISA allowance.
Yes, you can transfer an ISA to us by completing our Transfer Application Form.
When we receive your application form we will contact the other provider once any cancellation period has expired.
On receipt of your written request your investment in our ISA can be transferred to another ISA provider.
You can visit our 'Transfer to us' page for further help and information, or contact us directly.
All investment growth generated by ISA investments is exempt from income tax and capital gains tax for UK residents. The proceeds of the ISA will be tax free as long as you are resident in the UK.
Your Personal Savings Allowance (PSA) of £1,000 for basic rate tax payers, and £500 for higher-rate tax payers is not affected by subscriptions to your Account, and is available to you on-top of your ISA allowance for non-ISA savings.
Taxes and legislation may change in the future. The information given here is based on our understanding of the current situation at the date of publication. If you have any queries or concerns about your personal tax position we recommend you consult your local tax office or an IFA.
If you open an ISA in the UK and then move abroad, you cannot pay any more money into it after you move unless you are a Crown employee (or their spouse/civil partner) working overseas.
However, you may keep your ISA open, and you will still be entitled to UK tax relief on any monies held within it.
You can continue making contributions to your ISA once you return to the UK as a resident.
Your Flexible ISA ceases on the date of your death. Any bonus due will be claimed and the amount that can be claimed will be calculated as 101% of the value of units held within the Flexible ISA using the unit price at the date of death. (Refer to section ’18. Unit Prices’ of the Terms & Conditions)
No Income Tax or Capital Gains tax would be payable to that date, but the value of your Flexible ISA will form part of your estate for the purposes of Inheritance Tax.
Your spouse or civil partner can inherit the Flexible ISA and retain its tax benefits.
This means that as well as their normal ISA allowance, they can add a tax free amount up to the value you held in your Flexible ISA when you died.
Example: if you had £50,000 in ISA savings when you died, their ISA allowance for the year would be the £50,000 plus their own ISA allowance for the tax year in which you die.
How much could you get?
Because the ISA is invested on the stock market, it’s impossible to know the exact return you may get in the future - but we can give you a rough idea.
Adjust the sliders to see how the returns vary depending on different monthly payments, an initial lump sum and investment period.
Remember, these figures are only examples and aren’t guaranteed. What you get back depends on how your investment grows and what tax you may have to pay, and you could get back more or less than the figures shown. Don’t forget that inflation could reduce what you could buy with the proceeds of your ISA in the future.
The rates of growth we’ve shown give you a guide as to how much your investments could be worth in the years ahead in accordance with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requirements.
If you need financial advice
If you’re in any doubt about whether this product is right for you, it’s a good idea to talk to an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA). You can find a local financial advisor by visiting www.unbiased.co.uk. You may need to pay for a financial advisor’s help, so make sure you ask them about their fees first.
Terms and conditions apply to our Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA. For more information read the product’s Terms & Conditions and the Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA Key Information Documents.
Ready to apply?
If you’ve read through everything and you’re happy our Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA is what you’re looking for, let’s get your application started.
Apply now
