“Pension Lifestyle Funds are from a Bygone Era”

May 12, 2022 | Pensions

If you’re auto-enrolled into a workplace pension scheme, your money will go by default into an attractive-sounding ‘lifestyle fund’. This does not mean it’s tailored to meet your leisure and holiday aspirations. It means that in the 10 year or more countdown to ‘retirement’ (probably 67), they will move you to lower risk investments and cash. This is all based around the now-defunct idea that you’ll trade in your pension pot for an annuity, which almost no-one would nowadays be advised to do. Most should keep their fund invested and drawdown from it; which means you should stay in at least medium risk funds for the long-term and not let someone else ‘lifestyle’ you. If the cap fits, talk to an adviser.

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“Annuity rates soar to 14-year high”

“Annuity rates soar to 14-year high”

I was asked this week whether annuities are now ‘a good investment’. They’ve been recommended very rarely in recent years, since ‘pension freedoms’ allowed pretty much unlimited drawdown on pension funds and anything left to be passed on to beneficiaries free of Inheritance Tax.

“Pension fund crisis as gilt yields climb”

“Pension fund crisis as gilt yields climb”

What? Why? With apologies to any investment professionals reading this (if you are, I’m flattered), here it is in a nutshell. To borrow money, the government issues bits of paper (gilts) which say ‘lend us £100, we’ll pay you 1% a year for 20 years and then pay you back’.