Tue 24 Jan 2023 - Since April 2015 individuals have had greater flexibility in how they can access their pension benefits, for example they are no longer required to take an annuity and can now access their benefits as cash or transfer them to a drawdown arrangement. This change offers individuals much more choice and flexibility. A good thing – but are people aware of how to use these new freedoms and confident in doing so?
The IFoA carried out some work in 2016 on how individuals were reacting to new flexibilities and pensions freedoms. We have since carried out an updated study amongst 2000 55+ year olds to see how public attitudes have changed since then. The findings highlight interesting trends in consumer understanding, money concerns, the role of advice and guidance services, as well as considerations in terms of socio economic status and gender.
In this webinar, we will summarise our survey findings and chair a discussion on what these findings mean for UK pension savers and, in particular, what this means in the current environment with higher living costs.
We will be joined by Sarah Luheshi, Deputy Director – Head of Research from the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) and Joe Dabrowski, Deputy Director – Policy from the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA).
Kelly is a Fellow of the IFoA and former chair of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Personal Financial Planning Working Party and now sits on the IFoA’s Pensions Research Sub-committee. In her day job, Kelly is a Partner at Aon and leads Aon’s UK Member Options Team. Through this role Kelly works with trustees and sponsors of pension schemes on all types of member options exercises, including helping schemes put in place support to improve members’ decision-making at retirement.
Andrew is chair of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Personal Financial Planning Working Party. He is an Associate of the Institute of Actuaries and Fellow of the Personal Finance Society. Andrew works as a Senior Paraplanner at Clarity, an independent financial advice firm, where his focus is on the suitability of advice across all areas of personal finance. Given his technical expertise, he tends to work for individual clients on more complex, strategic advice matters, including defined benefit pension transfers.
Sarah joined the Pensions Policy Institute in 2015. In addition to being the Deputy Director, as Head of Research she also manages the PPI's research programme and policy research and modelling teams.
Sarah has over thirty years’ experience in financial services, having started in the corporate world working for a FTSE 100 composite insurance company before moving into management consultancy.
In January 2021 Sarah was appointed to the PLSA’s Policy Board. She is also chair of the Member Exchange Proof of Concept Project, taking forward a specific element of the industry Small Pots initiative.
Joe is responsible for policy areas including DB, DC, and LGPS pension provision, corporate and scheme governance and institutional investment issues. He is a Board member of the Cost Transparency Initiative, and an advisor to the LGPS Scheme Advisory Board (England & Wales) and Co-Chair of the Pensions Attention campaign.