PensionsSep 14 2021

Succession: Why we are supporting Pension Awareness Day

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Succession: Why we are supporting Pension Awareness Day
Credit: Fotoeye75

Adviser consolidator Succession Wealth has joined Pensions Awareness Day in order to promote retirement saving, but says it is disappointed not more advisers have jumped on board.

Speaking to FTAdviser ahead of Pension Awareness Day this week (September 15), Paul Campion, chartered financial planner at Succession Wealth, said the firm was looking to promote good quality financial planning for the masses.

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.

In acting as a supporting firm, Succession is helping to spread the word and raise awareness about the initiative and its events through its social media channels.

The campaign was created by Pension Geeks, which was recently acquired by Aegon, and runs a series of tours and workshops to help people understand how much money they will need in retirement and what they need to do in order to reach their savings goals.

Campion said: “It is a great initiative and I'm pleased that we have people that are pushing for it. I think it's slightly sad that it's so provider driven and not more advice driven."

Pension providers such as Scottish Widows and Aon have sponsored the initiative, while Royal London and Aegon act as ambassadors. Now Pensions is a partner and runs some of the webinars.

Lots of people need advice. If you can afford to fund your pension, you can probably afford advice.Paul Campion

This is the second year in which the campaign will be run virtually, offering live webinars, Q&A sessions and 121 talks with experts.

Getting the message across

Campion believes face to face and interactive video had to be the way forward with events such as this in order to get the message across to people, which is why Pension Awareness Day has been successful over the years and keeps growing.

Campion also raised the issue of the advice gap, saying he hoped the campaign would show people the value of taking advice or guidance.

“There's a lack of advisers, and there's been a well documented advice gap,” he said. “What we actually need is a change of regulation to make it far more affordable to address that issue.

“Lots of people need advice. If you can afford to fund your pension, you can probably afford advice. But it's more whether you want to afford advice and the reward that it gives because advice is so expensive. 

“And it's expensive because of the burdens that we face.”

Campion went on to explain that early on in his career he saw how much of a need there was to help people with their pensions.

It's about giving back and people understanding when to go speak to a financial adviser.Jonathan Bland

He told of a client who was a store assistant at Sainsbury's who had a money purchase scheme he was struggling to understand.

“He just wanted someone to explain to him his pension scheme,” Campion said. “I sat with him for an hour and explained it all to him."

Campion said the “number one benefit of this event is to give people confidence”.

Adviser input

Last year FTAdviser learnt that many advisers were unaware that the Pension Geeks initiative existed, despite being the main point of call for many people seeking help with their retirement planning.

However, this year more advice firms are supporting the event, including Brunsdon Financial, Chase de Vere and Origen.

While it would be better for more advisers to get involved, James Biggs, partner of pensions and financial wellbeing at the Employee Benefits Collective, said it was not an event to try and sell products and services.

He said: “It is about you and us collectively working together to take pension knowledge out to the wider UK population and in the workplace in particular because people are still sleepwalking towards the wrong outcome.”

He added: “I can understand why some of the advisory firms probably don't quite see it the same way [...] we wouldn't use Pensions Awareness Day to generate wealth opportunities for a wealth adviser.”

Jonathan Bland, co-founder of Pension Geeks, reiterated that pension awareness was not there for people to make money.

Bland said: “It's about giving back and people understanding when to go speak to a financial adviser. Because a lot of people think they should go straight to an adviser but actually they could go speak to Pension Wise and other people before they have to go and have paid advice.”

He added the event will be bigger than ever this year, saying he wanted it to be something that continues for many, many years and keeps on growing because, despite everything, right now it is not at the level it needs to be.

amy.austin@ft.com

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