PensionsSep 13 2019

Better marketing needed for Pension Awareness Day

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Better marketing needed for Pension Awareness Day

Pension Awareness Day takes place annually on September 15 with the aim to alert the nation that they need to save more for their retirement.

The campaign was created by Pensions Geeks which runs a series of tours and workshops across the country to help people understand how much they will need in retirement and what they need to do in order to reach their savings goals.

The initiative is supported by the Department for Work and Pensions as well as Pension Wise and Now Pensions.

Pension providers such as Aegon are also involved with a cross-country tour to get people engaged with their pensions.

But many advisers are unaware that this initiative exists, despite being the main point of call for many people seeking help with their retirement planning.

Victor Sacks, Independent Financial Adviser at VS Associates, said the initiative would be better if advisers were made more aware of it.

Mr Sacks said: “Pension Awareness Day is a great initiative but it is a shame that only a small number of advisers have heard about it or are involved.

“There are a number of great incentives to encourage people to become more involved with their pension however IFAs are often the last people to be involved but the first people expected to give advice on this matter.

“We could add more value and make it more personable and interesting for consumers. We want to help and educate people and are ready to get involved.”

Matthew Walne, independent financial adviser at Santorini Financial Planning, said: “They probably need to work on their marketing if advisers don’t know about it.

“A better name would probably be Retirement Savings Awareness Day. Having the word pension will turn most of the public off.”

James Biggs, partner of pensions and financial wellbeing at the Employee Benefits Collective, said he had made many advisers aware of the campaign.

Mr Biggs said: “I reached out to a lot of advisers to try and encourage them to get onto the tour. 

“I for one jumped at the chance of being involved and in the future it would be great to see more advisers joining in to talk to the general public about pensions.”

On the tour Mr Biggs has mainly been approached with questions about pension consolidation and whether it is the best thing to do as well as the state pension and how young you have to be to be able to save into a pension, he said.

This year Scottish Widows decided to run their own cross-country tour to promote pension awareness.

Robert Cochran, retirement expert at Scottish Widows, said advisers were involved with the tour to encourage people to book a session with an adviser to discuss their pension pot and expectations in retirement.

Mr Cochran said: “Throughout the week individuals come to us with three main questions. They want to know how they find out what is in their pension, whether this fund is enough and most importantly what they have to do next, which often involves them speaking to an adviser.

“We work with advisers on site so that if people have questions they are able to approach an adviser and get a session booked in their diary.”

amy.austin@ft.com

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