Tag Archives: Insurance

The bondage of advice.

Is this what we call regulated advice? Yesterday I told a cautionary tale about a friend who came close to sacrificing 105% of 10 years projected growth on his pension pot in advice and management fees. He asked the question “how can this … Continue reading

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Why I’m encouraging civil disobedience!

I’ve been spending  a little time catching up on the Pension Regulator’s website- well it is Christmas after all. I’ve come across this.   It’s a guide to employers on how they should talk to their staff about pensions. It is … Continue reading

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E-Christmas Cards – a very rum idea if you ask me.

What do you do with e-christmas cards? They bother me. “E-Christmas card” is a misnoma, most of these e-thingies seem the product of the thought police who de-risk corporate communications. “Merry” is of course out – a whiff of intoxication … Continue reading

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AE – make a virtue of necessity

  It pains me to hear advisers talk of auto-enrolment as a “burden”. Helping to provide a retirement fund from which your staff can draw a pension seems to me a good thing for employers to do. If the phrase … Continue reading

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We need a Bus and a Lamborghini!

My friend Ralph Frank is very good at putting his finger on the problem. If he was a Doctor, I’d trust his diagnosis and I like to think of him with a stethoscope prodding around the body financial – listening … Continue reading

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Labour’s drawdown cap – right idea- wrong execution

Labour is calling for a cap on drawdown charges from April 2015. It is easy to see why. Currently there is a false market for drawdown with many customers paying as much as 4% pa for the management of their … Continue reading

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Cass calls on fund managers to be paid on results.

    Dr Nick Motson of Cass Business School has issued another broadside at the funds industry who have been dilatory at best in responding to consumer pressure to better align its fees to the value it brings to consumers. … Continue reading

Posted in accountants, advice gap, David Pitt-Watson, dc pensions, pension playpen, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Does Generation X really trust the Internet?

  I laugh at my Mum who goes to Shaftesbury library to find out what to do. She’s 84 and you’d have thought she’d have learned how to use an iphone by now. I mean my 17 year old kid … Continue reading

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How to pay a consultant.

Why this is on my mind Today I’m speaking at a conference for pension consultants which is supposed to be exploring the opportunities for them and for their clients. Looking at their agenda, there is an obvious issue missing “how … Continue reading

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Tiny steps towards better DC outcomes- #CASummit14

Having spent 36 hours in the company of Life Co “strategists” and their counterparts in the IFA and EBC communities, I can now try and make sense of where “heads are at”. The mood has changed. Two years ago, the … Continue reading

Posted in advice gap, annuity, auto-enrolment, dc pensions, pensions, Retirement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment