Comparison website ‘misleading’ savers into buying low rates

Official figures have revealed that pension funds have plummeted a further £25 million into the red. The fall in bond yields – on which pension funds rely – has increased the pressure on the pots available to support final salary scheme pay-outs. At the end of May, the pension backstop PPF (Pension Protection Fund) revealed that the roughly five and a half thousand pension schemes it monitors have a combined deficit of nearly £295 billion. This is almost £25.5 billion worse than a month earlier.

Fears for the robustness of pension pots have been highlighted by the widely reported BHS deficit.  They come as a separate study reveals some of Britain’s biggest companies are paying shareholders a dividend bonanza despite huge deficits of their own. The Pensions Regulator have issued a similar warning in the past, saying: ‘It is important that employers treat their pension scheme fairly. We expect trustees to question employers’ dividend policies where debt recovery contributions are constrained.’ 

The Office for National Statistics puts UK life expectancy at 79.4 years for men and 83.1 years for women. Today, a 65-year-old man can expect to live for 18.5 more years, while a woman would typically have 21 more years left in her. Of course, life expectancies are averages – so this won’t hold true for everyone. Your lifestyle, diet, genetic make-up and wealth could all affect how long you will actually live for, with luck also playing a big role. Obviously, living a longer life is a good thing in theory, but from a retirement savings perspective, it can pose a real challenge. In fact, 60% of baby boomers admitted in a recent Allianz study that they’re more fearful of outliving their savings than of dying. This sentiment is shared by 43% of workers surveyed by Transamerica, who say that outliving their savings is their greatest retirement-related fear.