Time for a radical shake-up of shopping around

The ABI has published a Best Practice Guide for the Retirement Process, outlining the principles that providers are expected to follow and the steps they should take to increase consumer understanding of retirement and the buying of annuities. It recommends that customers should be sent all the information they need to shop around about four to six months before they retire, with no default automatic annuity offer made until six to ten weeks before the retirement date. The trade body also wants wake-up and follow-up packs to be “clear and jargon free”, while also avoiding “inconsistencie...