Following this year’s Pensions UK investment conference I was told that my press badge would not be renewed. I was not a journalist and I spent too much time expounding my commercial views and not enough the views of other. I agree that I am not opinionated and if I’m let into Pensions UK conferences, so should half the people who dominate social media!
But social media is a place where journalists hang out and read my pieces and it is always good to see your articles appearing in the trade press and sometimes the wider press, even if I’m not good enough to make it to the lofty pages of what is largely a right wing press.
A fishy tale of a salesman and and an angling journalist!
The FT is a paper that I have a lot of time for and I interact with some of their journalists. I admire many of them and can say that though I don’t always agree with her, I am more inspired by Josephine Cumbo than any of the other social media heroes who I quote on this blog. This is a long intro to a conversation I had yesterday afternoon with Jo which started in the morass of the mandate debate and ended with a pleasant one on one conversation which may go somewhere. Jo is instrumental in the strategy the FT adopts to help their staff afford to retire.
Here’s what I picked up after lunch from Jo.
There were even then a lot of faces such as Rob Reid’s liking the comment and for good reason, that last sentence could and should be used in conversation and formal speeches.
I couldn’t resist reminding people that I fervently believe that adopting CDC pensions rather than persisting with pots and DC, is equivalent to giving you a pay rise in retirement of up to 60%. We can’t do this ourselves (yet) but we can get out employer to make a CDC pension available.
I had recently read an article by Jonathan Guthrie who complained how hard it was for him to convert his pot into a retirement income using the 4% rule for drawdown. My actuarial friend Chris Bunford tells me that a half of the pot should be devoted to increasing the drawdown year on year to keep the regular income real. More on this in a moment, as I was thinking this, Jo was continuing the conversation
There is not enough information out and about with regards CDC. Recently I have started calling the type I think we need “workplace CDC” as opposed to “retirement CDC” which is about DC accumulation in a pot and a CDC pension as an alternative to an annuity today or in the future (flex and fix). I wasn’t going to let this opportunity to clear some myths up and dived into the pool to save the conversation from drowning!
Ok , this is why I’ve been thrown out the press room at Pensions UK conferences, I can’t stop selling my ideas, I can’t stop it – I was born a salesman!
I am also someone who took his little bit of DB early so I could live off it when founding AgeWage (I have never taken much salary since leaving my proper job 6 years ago!)
Jo threw me some bate and like a dumb fish I rose to the surface to take it
And now she had me on her hook and started hauling me in – her net set like the journalistic angler she is.
Of course I have an app in wait to launch as soon as Pensions Mutual’s CDC is authorised and it’s being developed to answer questions like Jo’s
Which takes me back to comparing SMPI apples with CDC pension pears. People so cling to the triple lock when it comes to increases in state pension but are happy to be quoted annuities and DC projections based on level pensions.
The increases are half the value of the CDC pension and we shouldn’t just be comparing the pension at outset, we should be considering the relative pensions at 75 and 85 and 95 (let’s hope we live that long!).
The regular income from default retirement incomes will needs be comparable and that doesn’t mean comparing level income (SMPI and ERI) with real pension where the income goes up each year in line with inflation (CPI).
Now here’s a pension story for a good journalist, not one confined to the blog of a salesman!
