What's your New Year's retirement planning resolution?

Retirement Planner asks industry spokespeople: What is your New Year’s resolution for the retirement planning market?

David Bell is managing director at Retirement Solutions UK

Our resolution is to increase our advisory service in the newly developed hybrid products arena.

The recent emergence of these hybrid options, coupled with our advisers' expertise in this market, means we can offer alternative options to our clients at this time. Not only are we now able to build plans more in line with their current circumstances, we're also constantly communicating with providers to help them develop products tailored to meet current market needs.

2012 will see more choice in how clients' retirement plans will work. I'm predicting there will be an even greater need for clients to seek independent advice from advisers who are experts in this area.

Peter Carter is product marketing director at MetLife

We need to move to a situation where everyone investigates their options at retirement and makes the most of their pension fund rather than sleep walking into what is a decision they will literally have to live with.
So the New Year's resolution is that a proper process is put in place to encourage savers to make a positive choice about retirement income.

We have to move on from the old retirement focus on what type of annuity to buy. The options need to be about more than simply impaired versus conventional annuity. The focus has to be on what type of income clients need and that means looking at the full range of solutions.

Andy Gadd is head of research at The Lighthouse Group

Last year I said the SIPP industry's New Year's resolution should be, as Mr Blair once said, "Education, Education, Education". I said they must play their part in educating individuals regarding increased longevity and the implications of this together with the fact that unlike their parents they are unlikely to have final salary pension schemes.

To enjoy a modicum of comfort in retirement individuals need to take responsibility rather than putting their heads in the sand. I stand by all of that, which can of course be applied more generally to the ‘retirement planning market', although perhaps I could express it more simply this year - individuals need to understand they cannot rely on the state for a comfortable retirement - that is the simple fact the market needs to shout from the rooftops.

Robert Graves is head of pensions technical services at Rowanmoor Pensions

The goal should be to realise individuals' expectations and aspirations for retirement. However, with this being a long-term exercise this would rightly fall to being a project, and as part of that project, we need to manage expectations. Here we must significantly reform the habit of talking in terms of retirement being a cliff edge event.

While this may have been the reality for the current retirees enjoying the vestiges of final salary schemes, the relentless improvements in longevity and vagaries of money purchase funding mean new generations of retirees will need to embrace the concept of phasing into retirement. This can be achieved by combining flexible earning with flexible retirement products so let's resolve to solve the looming pensions crisis.

Iain Herbertson is managing director at City Trustees

My New Year's resolution is to continue to promote the use of genuine SIPPs, and work with IFAs to provide products offerering genuine flexibility within their clients' financial planning requirements.

We also need to continue to try and obtain a clearer definition of a SIPP, and what is effectively a personal pension. A SIPP would be classed as a vehicle or solution that allows true self-investment, inclusive of direct ownership of commercial property, and allows diversification into specialist esoteric investments, as well as unrestricted use of cash deposits.

I believe this will help with the correct promotion of these products to ensure suitability for the right clients, which in turn should help ensure the right assets are used for the right clients.

For us it is important to not be a jack of all trades but to remain focused on distributing true self invested products to IFAs, coupled with the provision of strong individual service and technical support.

Chris Horlick is managing director, care at Partnership

To redress the plight of self funders for care - who are among the most underserved people in the care system - and in particular to ensure they receive proper access to information and especially appropriate financial advice.

Ged Hosty is managing director, equity release at Partnership

I would like to see more emphasis on planning throughout retirement, considering the different scenarios clients might find themselves in - for example, with regards to ill health or their partner's death. Planning should consider all of the client's assets, including their property where appropriate, the value of which might be accessed through trading down or equity release.

Jon King is managing director at More 2 Life

The key for 2012 is greater clarity from the government. The debate around care for elderly is helping but clients, intermediaries and providers need to know where the government stands to take things forward.

The industry has made great strides to improve standards while increasing business. All sorts of organisations that deal with the elderly are aware of equity release and how it can help.

However, the big gap is the lack of government clarity on equity release which would go a long way to helping providers develop new products designed for the modern pensioner.

Greg Kingston is director of marketing at Suffolk Life

Quite simply, to spare some thought for those investors in drawdown. Their income limits have been slashed with historically low GAD rates and returns to 120% GAD have been rejected on the basis that it is more important to preserve capital than maintain living standards.

Drawdown is about to turn 17 years old but is increasingly being treated as a child by legislators. Hoban denies the need for further change, saying: "In reforming pensions we have to balance freedom, fairness and responsibility." In practice, that means he knows better what investors need than the investors themselves, and it has been decided the priority of drawdown should be to preserve capital.

Drawdown isn't for everyone. It is a risk-based alternative to annuitisation that can offer the potential for growth and income. Without further action the current generation of drawdown investors risk being condemned to a low income future, waiting for the Treasury to take 55% of their ‘protected' fund when they die.

Carl Lamb is managing director of Almary Green Investments

My New Year's Resolution for the retirement planning market would be to keep calm and carry on! Let's get all the changes introduced recently properly bedded in, so that we can achieve consistency at last.

Five years ago, the huge shortfall in pension pots was flagged up and the government set out its plan with RDR and a raft of pension changes. The industry has had time to get itself ready for the brave new world; let's starting living in it.

Our political masters need to stop playing games and take pension planning seriously. The gulf between those who have pension planning in place and those who don't is getting wider; now is the time to firmly stop the rot and tackle the issue.

Steve Lowe is group external affairs and customer insight director at Just Retirement

There could be no greater achievement than to see Steve Webb and Mark Hoban approve the changes to reform the open market option (OMO) and replace it with the new default shopping around solution instigated by the Pension Income Choice Association (PICA) and now in partnership with other industry stakeholders.

To see this implemented in time to ensure the baby boomers travelling through the retirement system in 2012 attain the benefits of improved retirement choices would be a tremendous prize and would firmly establish Steve Webb as a true champion of reforms benefiting consumers.

Andrew Megson is managing director, Retirement at Partnership

Simplicity to aid customer understanding when they purchase annuities. To ensure that customers with small pension pots can still access advice following RDR! We have a duty to get this right. It is not acceptable for the poorest to be overlooked.

John Moret is founder of MoretoSIPPs

My New Year's Resolution for the retirement planning market is to try and convince the government that there must be more joined up thinking between the FSA and HMRC if there is to be any confidence in long-term retirement planning solutions. Too often providers and advisers are caught between a rock and a hard place as a result of differing interpretations and views between the two authorities.

Examples are the differing stances on ‘permitted' investments in SIPPs - and the annuitisation changes earlier this year where the FSA is already investigating the quality of advice provided. Some of the problems with drawdown are of the Treasury's making. Forcing through changes without full consultation has created a regime already out of alignment with financial and demographic conditions.

Richard Parkin is head of proposition in Fidelity's DC and workplace savings business

To make sure all of our customers reaching retirement get the best possible outcome. We can do this first, by understanding them better. Asking them simple questions about their health, family and aspirations.
Second, by giving them unbiased access to as many of the best product providers as we can. And for those who need more, giving them access to advice to help make those important decisions.

As an industry we have to recognise that consumer inertia cannot be tackled by a better retirement brochure or a simpler application form. We have to engage directly with our customers and coach them to make the right decisions. That means the industry being absolutely honest with them about what we can and cannot offer. Let's stop making customers poorer by not understanding them and selling them whatever happens to be on the shelf.

Andrew Pennie is marketing director of Intelligent Pensions
Our resolution for 2012 is to grow the Intelligent Pensions brand and the number of IFAs benefiting from our services. RDR transition and implementation will be a major theme for 2012 and we intend to continue supporting advisers meet their RDR requirements by delivering gap-fill sessions, seminars and other educational (CPD) outputs.

We believe 2012 will present tremendous growth opportunities for our services as IFAs look to specialise in certain areas and will therefore benefit by outsourcing non-core areas of advice to other specialists. This will create an attractive overall service proposition, maintain independence (or complement a restricted advice model), deliver quality client outcomes and engender a commercially viable business model.

Vince Smith-Hughes is head of business development at Prudential

My New Year's Resolution is to help advisers think more broadly about their at-retirement client propositions.

There has recently been much focus on the open market option - quite rightly, as it is important for people to understand that shopping around can be beneficial.

However, many of the commentators on this topic focus almost exclusively on the ‘best rate', giving very little consideration to the stage before this which surely must be ‘what is the right product'?

Taking this one stage further, if the right product is an annuity, of sorts, then whether a spouse's pension should be included, or thinking about escalation and guaranteed periods, are equally important deciding factors.
The current economic climate is having a significant impact upon inflation, annuity rates and GAD rates - all of which means that advisers should be building in alternative retirement solutions, such as investment-linked annuities, to their advice processes.

Fiona Tait is business development manager at Scottish Life

I pledge to do all I can to demystify pensions and help people understand why they need to save for their own retirement, and how much.

Rising life expectancy means that it will not be unusual for people to spend 20 to 30 years or more in retirement, without earned income.
If an individual wants to be financially comfortable, they need to be able to save enough to replace at least some of that income. For the majority of people, the basic state pension will not be sufficient.

Fundamentally, an individual needs to commit to saving. A financial adviser can help by calculating how much needs to be saved and by choosing the right savings plan. But by far the most important thing is for the individual to decide to do it, and then act.

Martin Tilley is director of sales and marketing at Dentons Pensions Management

I'd suggest that retirement planners take up clairvoyance, so they can look into the future and see what they will be retrospectively criticised for in five years time and plan accordingly.

Andrew Tully is pensions technical director at MGM Advantage

Ideally, 2012 will be the year of pensions education, led by government and supported by providers. The introduction of automatic enrolment, and the work needed to help people understand why it is important to save, is part of this.

But it is equally important that we also focus education on those approaching retirement. We need to help people choose the retirement product which best meets their needs. For those who choose an annuity, we have to find ways of showing the value of options where income continues to loved ones, or increases each year to help offset the impact of inflation. We need to make it easy for people to shop around, especially for those who may get an enhanced rate due to medical of lifestyle conditions.

Peter Welch is head of sales & distribution at Bridgewater Equity Release

First, I'd like to see the retirement planning market take equity release a bit more seriously. It's my impression that very few retirement planners actively promote the benefits of equity release, which is a great shame for the sector. I'd like to wager that the majority of IFAs would be surprised by the number of their clients that would be delighted to hear more about what the products can allow them to do in retirement.

Second, I want to work harder to find other ways in which customers and advisers can better see the benefits of home reversion plans. The majority of clients are recommended lifetime mortgages by their advisers which leaves the equity available to their estate exposed to the associated risks of longevity and house prices (living too long and/or low house price growth means rolled up interest erodes remaining equity).

The current market share does not do justice to a product that is simple to understand and insulates customers from exposure to longevity and house price inflation risk.