04 July 2012
On 4 July 2012, Marta Phillips, TPAS's chief executive officer,
took part in a panel discussion regarding the pension savings gap
experienced in particular by women. The panel explored the
issue and made suggestions regarding how the problem could be
addressed.
The points that Marta discussed with panel members included:
- Women need to be brave and make a decision to start
pension saving;
- Women need to be given pensions information that they
understand;
- Sometimes people buy single life annuities at retirement, not
realising that when they die, the pension will stop and their
spouse will get nothing;
- With respect to pension saving, doing nothing is not an
option;
- Financial education should ideally begin in schools; and
- It would be helpful if the financial press was more positive
towards pension savings, steering away from a negativity which
might deter people from saving.
The other panellists were Helen Morrissey editor of
Retirement Planner, Helen Dean, managing director of NEST
corporation and Deirdre Flood, senior operations director at
Prudential.
If you would like to discuss a pensions issue, TPAS runs a
helpline specifically for women which you can call on 0845 600
0806.
