Chris Knight: Don't let annuities get written out of the picture

Holistic retirement income plan

clock • 4 min read

Pension freedom may have given people more control over their retirement income but, warns Chris Knight, a lack of awareness about the various income options available means thousands of people are defaulting to drawdown

Some might conclude it is not looking too good for the annuities market at the moment. The recent Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) bulletin, for example, reports the number of annuity sales has fallen to its lowest level since then-Chancellor George Osborne introduced pension freedoms two and a half years ago. At the same time, continued uncertainty in the market is being fuelled by cautionary headlines such as "Britain's annuity market is facing extinction". And yet a closer look at how annuities are performing reveals things are nowhere near as bad as the doomsayers claim. There ha...

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