‘Delay pension allowance reform for 12 months’

Mr Zanelli, head of technical sales, said reducing the lifetime allowance to £1.5m from £1.8m and the option of fixed protection on pension savings was getting lost among the regulatory and structural changes sweeping the financial services.

He warned many high-net worth clients could lose out on substantial amounts of money without proper advice.

Mr Zanelli said: “I would question if we should be introducing fixed protection in the next 10 weeks. There are a massive swathe of changes that IFAs are tackling, not least the retail distribution review, so fixed protection and the lifetime allowance cut gets lost. It would be better delay it by 12 months to give advisers some breathing space.”

Mr Zanelli said the reform will have serious implications for clients and requires highly specific planning and many IFAs were not prepared.

He added: “Every client is an individual so there needs to be some serious number crunching and analysis to determine which course of action to take. If IFAs have not engaged with clients by now, the chance of doing anything is slim so a 12-month deferral could be good.”

Tom McPhail, head of pension research for Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This was announced 18 months ago so IFAs have had adequate time to prepare. The rules should not be bent to accommodate people who get caught out.

“We need to be careful about how often we ask the government to change its plans because it can undermine people’s confidence in the system.”