Category Archives: actuaries

Triple lock? – easy!

With a deft tweet , former Pensions Minister Steve Webb wakes us up to a startling economic revelation. Doesn’t seem long since we were reading doom-laden warnings about the National Insurance Fund ‘running out of money’ in a few years. … Continue reading

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What are those actuaries up to now?

“The Great Risk Transfer” baffled the journalists who were conspicuous by their absence at this breakfast meeting. Pension Age reported “IFoA to investigate transferring of risk onto consumers” as if the actuaries were campaigning  for Which? Professional Pensions reported the … Continue reading

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Pension transfers- actuaries have nothing to crow about.

I am cross that an established firm of actuaries get on the front page of the FT for kicking IFAs for their advice on pension transfers Mark van den Berghen, principal and senior consulting actuary at Buck, a consulting firm … Continue reading

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Con Keating asks “Does life-styling make sense?”

  In the course of my recent work on value for money metrics, I have come across several schemes which apply life styling to older ages and many have argued that these strategies merit a benchmark which differs from the … Continue reading

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“CDC could solve freedoms issue”-Boulding

Scanning the depressing progression of fake news on my linked in timeline, my eye was caught by a very odd post indeed. There’s a lot going on here and I decided to probe the link to what Adrian is saying.  … Continue reading

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A proper discussion on how long we live

The Long and Short of Life Expectancy – – @bbcradio4 complete with ⁦@RedActuary⁩ https://t.co/4SBQLWe2e1 — alan chaplin (@achaplin71) September 11, 2019 This is such a good discussion on how we measure life expectancy that I don’t want to spoil it … Continue reading

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The cost of turning pot to pension

  I’m pleased to hear that Scottish Widows are planning to open their standard annuity product to the open market (previously only Scottish Widows customers could access this product). Their marketing people tell us It will be available directly from … Continue reading

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Why do DB transfer values make me sick?

One of the things ordinary people find hardest to work out is why their share of a defined benefit scheme can go up when stock markets go down. This happened last month where the stock market fell. But in August, … Continue reading

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The impact of NDAs on pension outcomes

NDAs (non disclosure agreements), have been much in the news in the past week. The government says it will crack down on the use of workplace “gagging clauses” to cover up allegations of harassment, discrimination and assault. Many businesses use … Continue reading

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Have pension freedoms really lost us £4bn?

So many of us warned at the time that pension ‘freedoms’ were a BAD idea. We were right. Ironic then that a former pension minister who so favoured it (annuities bad, cash good) is quoted in this Times investigation bemoaning … Continue reading

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