How much could you lose? Opening the conversation on closing the pensions gap

9 September 2024

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) has been investigating potential barriers people in the UK may be facing when accumulating retirement savings. The IFoA Pensions Gap Working Party has been specifically modelling the impact these barriers have on pensions savings and how people can lose out. Our report, ‘How much could you lose?’ sets out these calculations, and provides recommendations for savers, employers and government to make sure workers can maximise their pension savings.

Some of the key findings include:

• Not starting a pension – starting a pension at 35 instead of 25 could mean a pension pot of only £500K at retirement instead of £800K. A £300K loss.
• Opting out of a pension – opting out for 5 years could cause a £100K reduction in your pension pot.
• For a typical person, not taking advantage of extra contributions of 1% of their salary for 40 years could result in up to £100k loss.
• Six months maternity leave could reduce a pension pot by £30k or more.
• Ignoring pensions on divorce could mean that one party ends up with more retirement income than the other.
• Moving to part-time – moving to 3 days a week for the second half of an individual’s career could reduce their pension by £200K.