General Insurance Article - The death of savings has been greatly exaggerated

 In July ONS published estimates of the savings ratio for Q1 2017 in which appeared to show a collapse in savings levels to a historically low figure of 1.7%. In August Royal London published research which suggested that the fall in the headline figure should not be read as evidence of consumers going on a spending spree and giving up on saving. The analysis 'Has Britain really stopped saving?' argued that the headline figure was distorted by lump sum tax payments in the first quarter of the year and that the numbers were being driven by changes in pension saving behaviour, including company contributions to pension schemes, which had little to do with consumer spending.

 ONS has now issued a revised set of figures for the savings ratio, estimating a savings rate of 3.8% in Q1 2017, rising to 5.4% in Q2 2017.

 Commenting, Steve Webb, said: Reports of the 'death of saving' have been exaggerated. Only this week, official figures confirmed that millions more people are now putting money aside for retirement through a workplace pension, and today's figures show saving rising compared with the start of the year. We need to be incredibly careful about putting too much weight on a single quarter's numbers, especially when the figures are subject to such large potential revisions. Britain has clearly not given up on saving'.