Retirement Income Review Launched

A review of the UK’s financial needs in retirement, and what changes are needed to ensure these are met, has been launched by the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

The review will focus on three key questions:

• what are people’s financial needs in – and concerns about – retirement?
• how effectively do current products cater for retirement needs?
• what changes are needed to ensure adequate retirement incomes?
• The ABI is inviting views and opinion from consumers and industry experts, as well as from politicians and unions. Consumers will be able to comment by completing a survey at the ABI’s website.

The review comes in response to new challenges for the provision of income in retirement:

• our ageing population – there are 11 million over-65s in the UK and this is expected to rise by nearly 50 per cent in the next 20 years
• our ‘chronic’ under saving culture – which is leading to hardship in retirement
• the introduction of auto-enrolment and changes to the state pension age
• increased demand for long-term care – 16 per cent of over-85s will need to go into a care home.

Launching the ‘holistic’ review, the ABI’s director general Otto Thoresen said:

 How we pay for life after work is one of the key challenges facing our society, and the reason we have launched this wide-ranging review. Radical reform is needed to ensure people retiring today and future generations avoid a retirement of struggling to make ends meet.