A quarter of female baby boomers view their pension communications as 'poor'

5th Oct 2022

A quarter (25 per cent) of female savers aged 58-75 year olds viewed communications from their pension provider as “poor”, compared with 16 per cent of men, research from Dunstan Thomas has revealed. The report, Exploring Baby Boomers’ Lengthening Journeys to Full Retirement, highlighted a gender pensions awareness gap, revealing that male “baby boomers” savers were more informed than their female counterparts.

The level of engagement with both wake up packs and Investment Pathways with wake up packs was found to be particularly poor, as, amongst the personal pension holders surveyed, 34 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men were convinced that “they had not received a pensions wake up pack from their provider".

Unengaging Pension Communications

One of the impacts of unengaging pension communications is that many policyholders are unclear how much they will receive from their pension, or even what pension they hold with female boomers being most affected.

An example of this could be seen in the report findings, as 61 per cent of women aged 58-75 confirmed that they have done “no active financial planning for retirement beyond paying into their pension” compared to 50 per cent of men in the same age group. The study also found that 13 per cent of female respondents were unable to identify what pension scheme they were saving into, compared to one-in-10 baby boomer men who admitted the same lack of engagement.

Furthermore, it discovered that 38 per cent of female and 26 per cent of male Baby Boomers could not answer the question: “How soon before retirement date will you (or did you) consider adjusting your investment assets to reflect whether you plan to buy an annuity, cash in your plan or move into income drawdown?”

Dunstan Thomas director of retirement strategy, Adrian Boulding, commented: “Given the lack of engagement with wake up packs and Investment Pathways options to date, it makes sense to explore digital delivery of packs and pathways communications via secure web portals or mobile apps. “In this way, it is much more likely customers will look at their pensions savings earlier; decide if they need to make changes and, with the help of digital projection tools (if non-advised) make changes to their contribution levels and underlying fund selections online, well ahead of starting their decumulation journeys.”

“Sadly, it is probably too late for some female Baby Boomers currently retiring to do anything about the pensioner poverty revealed by Dunstan Thomas’ research. But for younger women, it’s vital that pension providers and advisers up their game on communications so that savers become aware of their future retirement income prospects and take more control of their own destiny while they still have time.”

The report also found an increase in those planning to work for longer before retirement, with 31 per cent of 58-75 year olds wanting to work beyond the state pension age.

The Full Article

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