I am in workplace pensions and am doing my best to avoid the pre-retirement strategies of my two providers, one Nest , the other L&G. But wherever I look at alternatives, I find little coherence.

It is obvious what the default will be from 2027, a retirement income with protection for those living “too long” but no coherence about how this will be done and what people who don’t take a choice will get by way of increases. If we are to follow what people have done when purchasing annuities, you’d think we had no fear of any inflation in retirement. If you read the CDC consultations you would think that inflation will be targeted, whatever sort of CDC you end up in.

Those who advocate annuities argue that people want certainty, but if that’s the “fix” it goes with a “flex” that exposes people to the vagaries of the equity and bond markets till the annuity purchase arrives.

Those who hope that people will engage and choose a post-retirement strategy are expecting a change in people’s behaviour. While those who think they know what they are doing can be decisive, most know what their advisers tell them and those who manage their post retirement affairs without an adviser are warned by advisers of the risks they are taking.

I read the People’s Pension press releases about what they are doing to help the 17m savers they have who are pre-but close to retirement and likely to do nothing with the bulk of their savings (especially if they’ve drawn down their tax-free cash). How can Dan know what people want, when their is so much noise?

Says one headline from Pamela Kokoszka of IPE

People’s Pension has altered the investment strategy of its pre-retirement glide path to reduce exposure to cash, gilts and other sovereign bonds. 

The master trust says these changes are designed to boost outcomes for its 1.7m members approaching retirement. 

The pre-retirement situation at People’s is a fiercely complicated matter, presumably giving it a market edge but giving me a headache!

People’s Pension says this change means this part of its default is now anchored around a global portfolio of high-quality short-dated corporate bonds, actively managed by Invesco. This includes US, European dn UK investment grade corporate bonds, as well as selective exposure to US and European high yield bonds.

People’s Pension says the global nature of these bond holdings is important to ensure sufficient diversification and liquidity which is not available in the sterling market alone.

It is not something that I can explain to myself, let alone to those I know who use People’s Pension. But it is a response to the way that people who retire from People’s behave. This is from Corporate Adviser and must be from a corporate statement from Dan and his team

The strategy design was informed by People’s Pension’s proprietary dataset, which includes insights from hundreds of thousands of member interactions in the lead-up to retirement representing a range of real-life member outcomes from cash out to ongoing drawdown. Development work continues on future retirement drawdown products for older savers.

Here is the central problem facing CIOs and Government alike. Most of us have no idea what to do with the money in our pot so leave it to those who manage our “pension” but there is no pension forthcoming.

If people are reaching the end of their savings and wanting to retire, then what will these bonds produce by way of a regular income? I suspect that Dan is creating a holding pen before investing for what for most people is a 25 year + period depending on pensions and savings.

Corporate Adviser picture a scientific approach to investment and when it comes to the macro/micro implementation of a settled strategy, I’d take my hat off to Dan Mikulskis who knows what he is doing.

But Dan’s trying to match the behaviour of his 1.7m punters and we are wondering around like bewildered buffaloes – seeking comfort in sticking together and worrying we might be picked off by predators. This is not a strategy it is an observation of chaos, best matched. It is at best a holding pattern.