It doesn’t give me much comfort to read this “partnership content” – eg an advert, in the FT from Prudential Finance. I include the article below as an example of the American way of turning pots to guaranteed income. It is of course “money purchase”, we tried it, didn’t like it and ditched it for pension freedoms. Now we have freedom from pensions we suffer the same problems as the Americans have, but at least we have done some thinking together. Together we’ve worked out that a collective rather than an individual solution to the problem may be better for us in the UK
Insurers don’t get Britain’s retirement heritage. Our heritage is a pension paid from a fund with social insurance (not an annuity) paying our income till death and often our partner’s death.
This is the partnership content. The article shows what we know in the UK, that DC in the States is about accumulating wealth and not about pensions at all. Belatedly, insurers like Prudential are turning their minds to what their customers need in later years.
There is a possibility that Prudential Finance may own L&G before long. I do not think L&G has much to learn from its predator, infact it could be well ahead. If there is an advantage in knowledge it is with the British private pension providers and will the legislation that allows our DC pensions to pay pensions with social insurance and not annuities.
