8/3/2010
By Sophie Baker
Just thirty-four per cent of employees believe their pension will be sufficient for retirement, according to the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF).
Research by the NAPF showed that 27 per cent of people would be more confident in pension saving if they were guaranteed not to lose any of the money paid in, and 26 per cent said they would like a guarantee that their pension income would not run out before they died.
And despite recent speculation that a nod towards the US's 401K pension plan would encourage people to save, with incentives such as allowing early access to part of the pension, only ten per cent of people said this would make them more confident in pension saving.
However, 44 per cent of participants still see a pension as the best way of saving for retirement, compared to property at 18 per cent, and ahead of any other firm of saving.
"It is clear that people greatly value pensions," commented NAPF director of policy, Nigel Peaple. "They consider pensions to be the best way to save for retirement - far ahead of property - and over three quarters value an employer more if they offer a workplace pension.
"People want their pension to provide them with certainty, in particular they want to be sure they won't lose money. This issue of how best to invest pensions will be examined at our Investment Conference this week."
The NAPF Investment Conference runs from Wednesday 10 to Friday 12 March 2010. Click here for details.
Other stories you may find of interest:
Pensions Age DC roundtable 2010:
Our panel met for the first time this year to examine the key issues currently on the DC agenda. The forthcoming General Election, the introduction of auto-enrolment and NEST, corporate wraps and hybrid schemes, meant the panellists certainly had a lot to talk about
Public sector pensions even more of a burden than previously thought
Public sector pensions are twice as valuable as previously assumed, reports the Public Sector Pensions Commission, with the true value of the main unfunded public sector schemes worth over 40 per cent of salary
Top bosses’ retirement futures paved with gold
Directors of the leading companies in the UK are enjoying pension pots worth an average of £3.8m, says the TUC in its newly published PensionsWatch survey. The annual survey has revealed that the average transfer value for a director’s pension has increased by £400,000 since last year, resulting in an average annual pension of £227,726. Notably, the average director’s pension is now 26 times the size of an average occupational pension of £8,736. The largest pension pot in this year’s research is worth over £21m, which would pay out an annual pension of over £1.3m
