In April 2022 it was announced that two industry bodies, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) had joined forces to launch a campaign to boost people’s understanding and engagement with their pensions.
The pension engagement season campaign, titled 'Pension Attention', will start in September and run through to November, with the slogan ‘it’s time to pay your pension some attention’. A striking logo has also been created to help promote the campaign.
The ABI and PLSA noted that, despite previous efforts by the industry, Government and money guidance bodies, engagement with pensions remains low and stated that the campaign’s aim is ‘to break through the public’s lack of interest and make pensions a talking point for people going about their everyday lives’.
Research by the ABI and PLSA found that only 20 per cent of people are confident they are saving enough for retirement and, without any action to save more, millions of people risk not having enough money to meet their needs.
Seventeen pension providers and schemes, representing approximately 41.5million savers, have committed to support the campaign, with a collective investment of at least £1 million over the next three years. Supporters include some of the UK’s largest providers such as Aviva, Standard Life, Scottish Widows, and Legal & General plus pension schemes such as Railpen and the Universities Superannuation Scheme.
This is the first time so many pension providers and schemes across the UK, including the very largest, have united behind the same call to action over the same period. This concerted action will reach tens of millions of savers who are in automatic enrolment schemes, defined benefit pensions, self-invested personal pensions, and those who have started withdrawing money from their pension.
The campaign will complement the work of the Department for Work and Pensions. In June 2022, the then Pensions Minister Guy Opperman said: ‘Engagement season will complement the crucial work already under way on pensions dashboards and simpler statements, helping savers get to grips with their pensions and bringing retirement saving into everyday conversation. I warmly welcome this campaign from the ABI and PLSA and look forward to working together — and with other industry partners — to help bring about a step change in how the record number of Brits now saving for retirement engage with their pension.’
The campaign will be built around three existing industry events which take place on the following dates this year:
National Pension Tracing Day – 30 October Pensions Awareness Week – 31 October to 4 November Talk Money Week – 7 to 11 November
PS Aspire is the founder of National Pension Tracing Day, which launched last year, and we’re delighted that the impact we made has resulted in our initiative becoming a key cornerstone for the Pension Attention campaign.
National Pension Tracing Day was born out of our recognition that there is estimated to be 1.6 million lost or forgotten pension pots with a total aggregate value of £19.4 billion. This equates to an average pot size of £13,000 and could mean that as many as 1 in 30 adults in the UK have a pension pot waiting to be found.
We have designated the last Sunday in October as National Pension Tracing Day. It’s the day the clocks go back and we’re calling on people to use the extra hour to start finding lost pension treasure.
To support people in this search, we have created a website www.nationalpensiontracingday.co.uk and have also developed a toolkit to help employers support their employees.
We founded National Pension Tracing Day as a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, so we don’t charge for anything connected to it.
Employers can use our free communications toolkit to encourage employees to get involved in National Pension Tracing Day. It’s worth doing; we’ve heard some great stories from employers who participated last year. One of the best was a member who found lost pensions worth more than £80,000.
Our toolkit is designed to help employers communicate National Pension Tracing Day to employees quickly and easily. If you would like to receive it, sign up here.