Tag Archives: annuity

What is CDC?

Posted on April 2, 2018 by

  I’ve had a couple of calls recently for a simple explanation of what CDC is and why it could be useful in Britain today. CDC is an abbreviation for Collective Defined Contribution. A CDC scheme is created by contributions … Continue reading →

Posted in CDC, Pension Freedoms, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Something “DC” that John Ralfe and I agree on!

Posted on March 19, 2018 by

I sometimes think John and I will never agree, I am forever looking at the world half full and he “half empty”, where I see opportunity, he sees danger, where he sees certainty, I see parsimony. But when John posted … Continue reading →

Posted in annuity, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Why insurance isn’t always right.

Posted on February 20, 2018 by

This is an article in preparation for publication; thoughts on it, especially from insurers would be very welcome. In it, I argue that insured solutions are not always right for us – in our retirement savings and that insurance companies … Continue reading →

Posted in life insurance, pensions | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Has the hardest nastiest problem in finance just got a little easier?

Posted on January 1, 2018 by

I enjoyed reading this serious and sensible argument by Steven Lowe of “Just”.  I suspect that most financial advisers reading it will conclude, as I do, that planning an income for the final years of someone’s life is so fraught that (if … Continue reading →

Posted in actuaries, annuity, CDC, pensions | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Target pensions – freedom from freedoms

Posted on December 16, 2017 by

  Last week I ran a couple of meetings of the Friends of CDC, a loose affiliation of pension people with a view that CDC can offer a solution to some of the intractable problems people face in retirement. Let’s start … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, CDC, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A time of trust – not guarantees.

Posted on November 26, 2017 by

About the time that I was ranting to TISA about the complacency with which we are dismantling the retirement promises made to those who were promised a DB pension based on the years they worked with the company;- this happened! … Continue reading →

Posted in CDC, DWP, FSA, Music, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Flunking financial literacy – it’s a global thing!

Posted on November 6, 2017 by

Amin Rajan is a clever man and he has written a very good article in the FT that starts The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s recent exposure of the abuses around the 2015 pension freedoms that enable people to cash in their gold-plated … Continue reading →

Posted in CDC, pensions | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

This market failure’s not about advice but product.

Posted on July 13, 2017 by

  The FCA paper on structural problems with the pension freedoms that I wrote about yesterday, is the first evidence of Government admitting all in this garden is not rosy. What has happened since 2015 is an increase in people hammering … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, CDC, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Bad language gives pensions a bad name.

Posted on May 3, 2017 by

Yesterday a financial journalist called about a confusing e-mail she had seen showing changes to a friend’s pension plan The letter was trying to explain how the friend’s fund management would change – to give her freedom and choice in … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Auto-protection from an autodidact (the joy of Johnson).

Posted on March 26, 2017 by

One of the joys of Michael Johnson’s 40 or so papers on pensions is that you never know what to expect next. Johnson deliberately sets himself apart from the industry to rail at it. He is at his best when … Continue reading →

Posted in pensions | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments