A pension expert has urged the government to prioritise the introduction of the long-awaited pensions dashboard or risk a future pension crisis. Stuart Price, Partner and Actuary at Quantum Advisory, said: “I read so many surveys and reports last year about workers not knowing how much income they were likely to receive at retirement, how much they should be saving, at what age they could retire, or even what they would receive from their state pension. At the end of 2019, Aviva reported that nearly nine million people didn’t know how much they need to save each month to enjoy a comfortable retirement, and over five million didn’t know how much they have already put away.
Earlier in the year, a survey of more than 2,000 people carried out by Expert Pension Claims found that more than a third of workers didn’t know how to access their pension savings and apparently 19% think their contributions are a ‘total waste of money’. This is truly shocking, and I think it can be put down to a lack of financial education and a sense of distance from our pensions. All workers see is money coming out of their pay packet and are unsure where it is going, when they will see it again or how much they will get back.
This is where the pensions dashboard will make such a difference. At the click of a button – on the computer, tablet or mobile – people will be able to access and manage all their private pension arrangements along with their State Pension. They will be able to see what they can expect to receive upon retiring at their current saving levels, and what they might receive if they upped their contributions. It will not only educate them about what’s happening with their savings, but will also hopefully encourage people to save more.
The dashboard has seen numerous setbacks, and looked likely to be scrapped at one point, but the government has committed to ensuring it is introduced and that all providers supply standardised data. While this is reassuring news, the government, regulators and the pension industry need to get a move on or face a lost generation of pension savers and the issues this will bring are unthinkable.”
Stuart Price, Partner and Actuary