An exclusive poll commissioned by Friends Life for FTAdviser has uncovered a potential schism in saving habits across age demographics as a result of the budget pension reforms, with the youngest savers close to four times more like to save more compared to over 55s.
If the success of the policy is judged to be the extent to which people save more towards their retirement, the results point to a partial success: more that one in four of those aged 34 and under in the 2,000-strong survey said they would put more aside as a direct result of the reforms.
However, more than a third of 18-24 year olds said they were unaware of the changes at all, while a similar number of 25-34 year olds said they would no difference.
In contrast to this group, older savers signalled overwhelmingly that they would be largely unaffected by the reforms, with close to three-quarters stating they would make no difference and only 7 per cent saying they would save more.
A majority of 57 per cent of 45-54 year olds similarly signalled indifference, meaning of the entire sample of a little over 50 per cent stating the new pension access flexibility would make no difference to their saving.
The survey also found that 44.5 per cent did not know which product they would use to pay a regular income in retirement, with various other options available scoring far lower.
Annuities were the most popular of the alternatives (13 per cent), followed by income drawdown (12 per cent), lump sums (10 per cent), unit-linked investments (7 per cent) and buy-to-let property (7 per cent).
Respondents were also asked whether they understand all the pension saving and income product options that are open to them, with more than half stating they either fully or mostly understood, or could research what they did not know.
This still meant that close to one in five stated they do not really understand the new range of options and would need some help. Only 4 per cent said they did not know there are new options available to them at all.
