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06

Age UK calls for regular financial check ups

Open-access content Friday 27th June 2014 — updated 5.13pm, Wednesday 29th April 2020

The idea of a single financial plan for retirement is no longer fit for purpose, charity Age UK said as it called for periodic finance ‘MOTs’.

Its Financial resilience in later life report, published this week, noted that ill health, divorce, care needs and the death of a partner could derail financial plans overnight. Combined with retirement - which could last 30 to 40 years - the report said a new approach to financial planning was needed. This should concentrate on building resilience rather than developing a single plan for retirement and should consist of regular session of financial guidance and advice.

Tom Wright, Age UK group chief executive, said: 'With retirement now often lasting... a third of [an individual's life] we're in critical need of a radical new approach to making later life financially secure and comfortable.

'The concept of making one set of retirement plans at pension age is not fit for purpose.'

Age UK said that this approach would be most useful for those with modest retirement savings, many of whom would not have used traditional financial advice. Research shows that almost two million people in England aged between 50 and 64 show very low financial readiness for ageing.

'While the introduction of automatic enrolment into a workplace pension has been a vitally important step forward, the current generation coming up to retirement will not fully benefit,' the report said.

'One fifth of men and two fifths of women have no private pension at all. Half of all women have a private pension worth less than £22,000, equivalent to just £1,300 a year.'

Wright added: 'We believe a series of financial MOTs at significant points throughout retirement, together with a robust state and private pension system, is the real way to help people make ends meet and live comfortably.'

The charity has also warned that there is likely to be a growing risk of scams following the Budget announcement that pensions will no longer have to be converted into annuities.

With a growing number of older people considering alternative ways of investing their savings, there is likely to be an accompanying increase in bogus investment schemes, it said.

 

This article appeared in our June 2014 issue of The Actuary.
Click here to view this issue
Filed in
06
Topics
Pensions

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