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Money may be transferred out of closed pension books when protected rights money is finally allowed to be placed into Sipps, the Pearl Group has admitted.

Pearl has one of the largest closed pensions books, with £75bn in assets under management and it has admitted it may see an increase in transfers. From 1 October, about £100bn of protected rights money will be able to go into Sipps, it is estimated.

Billy Mackay, marketing director of AJ Bell, said: "People have been using Sipps to consolidate assets. We have lots of clients who want to invest their protected rights money into Sipps. Money coming from closed pension books will be huge, if you assume that a lot of this money has accumulated for more 20 years, and there have been significant changes in the market in terms of types of investments available.

"The funds that people are investing in today are different to the funds people were investing in five years ago. People will be well advised to carry out reviews of how they are investing in their protected rights."

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research for Hargreaves Lansdown, said that the entire life closed personal pension sector is worth about £440bn and Pearl has a big slice of that market and on 1 October there will be a "revolution" when protected rights money can go into Sipps.

He said: "There is a lot of money that has been sloshing around. We are talking about a lot of money in some cases a lot of mobile capital. We do expect there to be a revolution on 1 October when you can expect to protected rights money into Sipp because by definition it is long term money. There are about 8m who contracted out of personal pensions, most of them would be in mediocre investment funds. This is an opportunity to invest in that money more astutely, but perhaps engage with the investment strategies of those investment funds. Pearl do not have a Sipp at the moment, and you could legitimately ask why would I want to leave my money in an unexciting fund."

A spokesman of the Pearl Group said: "As a closed life business, we are not competing for new pension business. Pearl Group's focus is solely on improving the lot of current policyholders.

"In terms of the impact of on our policyholders of any amended legislation relating to Sipps, there may be a small increase in transfers out but we do not believe this will be significant, given our customer base."