More than six years after the Pension Freedoms were introduced, recent research commissioned by Fidelity International discovered that a quarter of people surveyed aged between 55 and 64 were not aware of them.
Lack of understanding puts individuals at risk of making poor choices on important retirement planning issues. As well as the risk of selecting options that don’t make the most of their pension savings, there is also the risk of them running out too soon.
The Pension Freedoms study published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in October 2020 and which we covered in our January edition of Vision, found that consumers might be taking potentially detrimental decisions without seeking guidance or advice, often because of the perceived cost involved.