EXCLUSIVE: 54% are concerned about decision-making when accessing pension benefits

decisions

EXCLUSIVE: Uncertainty about how to make the best decisions when accessing pension benefits topped the list of employees’ concerns regarding retirement, cited by 54% of respondents in research conducted by Employee Benefits and Barnett Waddingham.

The Employee Benefits/Barnett Waddingham pensions research 2018 garnered 246 responses and was published in December 2018. It found that this concern about how to make the best decisions has risen by 13 percentage points from last year’s research, but has shown an overall decrease of 6% since 2014.

A lack of money in retirement is the next most common worry (45%), closely followed by concerns about financial security (42%).

Four in 10 respondents (40%) identified uncertainty about what to do with pension savings, which is broadly in line with the results in 2016 (41%) and 2017 (39%).

Lowest on the list of concerns for respondents were: lack of purpose (13%), lack of social interaction with peers (12%), the ability to provide for children and grandchildren (12%) and uncertainty about their organisation’s ability to offer access to pension funds through drawdown (6%).

Worryingly, one in five (20%) respondents admitted to being unaware what retirement concerns affect their workforce.