The Pensions Regulator (TPR) recently released its analysis supporting the 2022 Funding Statement. The analysis looks at the expected funding position of schemes with valuation dates between 22 September 2021 and 21 September 2022. Posted on Friday Jul 1
Less than half of UK CEOs and business leaders are aware that their company pension scheme could be contributing to climate change, according to research by Make My Money Matter. Posted on Thursday Jun 30
Emma Douglas, Director of Workplace Savings & Retirement at Aviva comments on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ‘Workplace pension participation and savings trends: 2009 to 2021’ figures. Posted on Wednesday Jun 29
ISA sales almost doubled in 2021, from 389,674 to 769,247, as ‘accidental’ lockdown savers shifted money into tax efficient vehicles, new FCA data shows (Retail Investments Product Sales Data dashboard | FCA). SIPP sales also surged by 15% year-on year, from 740,418 in 2020 to 851,963 in 2021. Drawdown continues to dominate the retirement income market, with 218,100 people entering drawdown in 2021, up 21% from 180,654 in 2020. Annuity sales also nudged up by 7% year-on-year, from 41,293 to 44,161 Posted on Wednesday Jun 29
DWP has published a new consultation on two issues relating to pensions dashboards – the way in which the ‘go-live’ date to the public will be announced, and on communications between the Money and Pensions Service (MAPS) and the Pensions Regulator. But on the ‘go-live’ date – known in the jargon as the ‘Dashboards Available Point’ (DAP) – DWP is ‘missing the point’ according to LCP partner Steve Webb. Posted on Tuesday Jun 28
The tennis world’s top competitors will be walking onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court today - and may well be inspired by the board above the entrance which displays Rudyard Kipling's poem 'If'’, and its famous words on how you should treat “Triumph and Disaster”. Posted on Monday Jun 27
XPS Pension Group’s Transfer Value Index indicates that May’s month-end average transfer value was £217,000, the lowest since June 2016. The fall of 7% over May was due to a further increase in gilt yields and a further fall in long term inflation expectations, despite the continued current high inflation rates. Posted on Monday Jun 27
Hymans Robertson s warning that DB pension scheme trustees are increasingly taking ESG considerations into account as they face buy-in decisions. They are being given this additional focus due to increasing environmental expectation of members. With buy-in becoming a more likely outcome for DB pension schemes, and growth in this area looking set to continue, the importance of ESG has never been greater for risk transfer. Posted on Friday Jun 24
Data from 2021 shows the gender pension gap is 16% at the beginning of women’s careers, reaching 55% at the point of retirement, a minor change from 2020. Average pension pot of a woman at retirement (£12,000) found to be less than half that of a man (£26,000) at the same retirement stage. L&G commits to taking action to understand and tackle its own gender pensions gap, help employers and members do the same and pushes for collaboration between schemes and providers to drive change. Posted on Friday Jun 24
An industry group, jointly convened by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), has explored various solutions to tackle the issue of small deferred pension pots in the automatic enrolment (AE) workplace pension market, and narrowed them down to three options. Posted on Friday Jun 24
Steps forward have been made by the pensions industry to help savers make informed decisions about what to do when they retire, a Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) report states, a week after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) issued its Call for Evidence on helping savers understand their pension choices. Posted on Thursday Jun 23
Trustees are being warned they must start preparing for their pensions dashboards deadline, as part of a new campaign launched today by The Pensions Regulator. Posted on Wednesday Jun 22
According to a recent FOI request made by HL, 14,500 girls aged 15 or under had money paid into a pension for them compared to 15,300 boys in 2019-20. The gap is closing. In 2015-16 only 13,800 girls had money paid into a pension for them compared to 15,800 boys. Posted on Wednesday Jun 22
The buyout cost for UK Defined Benefit (DB) Pension Schemes could be reduced by c£100bn by offering a clear range of options to DB members according to analysis by Hymans Robertson. This saving equates to broadly a three-year reduction in timescales for reaching buyout, providing huge value for DB schemes and their members, claims the leading pensions and financial services consultancy. It warns that many DB schemes are taking longer to reach their final point, unnecessarily, by not considering the role that member options can have. Posted on Wednesday Jun 22
Marking 10 years since the dawn of automatic enrolment, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) is calling on the Government to set out how pension contributions can be increased and the eligibility criteria widened to encourage people to save more over the next 10 years. Posted on Tuesday Jun 21
Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at AJ Bell, comments: “Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing is now bang in the mainstream, with well-known figures including national treasures David Attenborough and Love Actually director Richard Curtis urging pension schemes to do more in the battle against climate change. Posted on Tuesday Jun 21
With rising life expectancy and an ageing population, there are pressures on the financial sustainability of providing state pensions in the UK: the number of people of pensionable age is projected to reach over 15.2 million by 2045, a 28% increase on the level in 2020 (Office for National Statistics, 2022). One response to this challenge by the UK government has been to increase the earliest age at which people can claim a state pension (‘the state pension age’, SPA). The female state pension age began rising from age 60 in April 2010, achieving parity with the male state pension age of 65 in late 2018. Posted on Monday Jun 20
Comment from Jon Greer, head of retirement policy at Quilter on today’s ONS report on ‘Saving for retirement in Great Britain’: The ONS report on paints a rather harrowing picture of the retirement outlook for a vast number of people and highlights the disparity in retirement savings across the nation, with a particular lack seen in those who are self-employed. Posted on Monday Jun 20
For the first time, people were more likely to only pay into a defined contribution pension (26%) than a defined benefit pension (23%). Between April 2018 and March 2020, more people below State Pension age (57%) were actively saving for retirement using private pensions than before automatic enrolment was introduced in 2012 (43%). Posted on Friday Jun 17
The Department for Work and Pensions needs to ‘come clean’ over the scale and nature of a new round of state pension errors, according to LCP partner Steve Webb, following revelations of new errors going back decades. Posted on Friday Jun 17
Aon has said that the UK results of its ‘2022 Global Perspectives on Responsible Investing’ survey signal a significant shift in the institutional investment landscape over the last two years, with pension schemes recognising the influence of their investment choices. The results also show that many are making a commitment to take action, with 19 per cent of UK asset owners already committed to aligning their portfolios to net zero by 2050 and a further 53 per cent intending to do so soon. Posted on Thursday Jun 16
Official data shows large swathes of the over 50 population have left the workforce since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with retirement the overwhelming reason behind this. Some will have experienced job losses or health issues and have felt forced into accessing their pension savings earlier than planned, while others will have reassessed priorities during the pandemic and make a voluntarily decision to retire early. Posted on Wednesday Jun 15
Vishal Makkar, Head of Retirement Consulting at Buck in the UK, discussing the move in the aggregate position of the schemes in the PPF’s 7800 Index over the course of May 2022. The update showed that the aggregate surplus of the 5,215 schemes in the Index is estimated to have increased to £261.6 billion, after it passed the bar of £200 billion for the first time last month. The funding ratio increased from 114% at the end of April 2022 to 118.9%. Posted on Wednesday Jun 15
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