Social experiment: Where next for retirement income post-pensions freedom?

Where next for retirement income post-pensions freedom?

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We're six months into the ‘social experiment' that is pensions freedom. Here, Andrew Tully makes the case for packaged retirement income through a drawdown/annuity combo

Time flies when you are having fun. Incredibly, we are almost six months into pension freedom. Although it is way too early to call whether people are achieving better outcomes from their savings, recent data from the Association of British Insurers does shed some light on customer behaviour. A chunky £2.5bn has been paid out in the first three months since the freedoms came in, although encouragingly, £2.3bn has also been used to buy regular income products, either annuities or income drawdown. The data shows a fairly even split between annuities and drawdown, with £1.3bn invested...

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