Three things we learned this week

Retirement Planner’s round up of the top pensions stories.

Over a third have stopped pension payments

More than a third of people have ceased pension payments, according to research by Prudential.

Unemployment and a lack of spare cash are cited as the two main reasons for this trend in the nationwide survey of 1.602 non-retired adults in the UK.

Head of business development at Prudential, Vince Smith-Hughes said it was important ‘to get the message across that people need significantly more income than the basic state pension in retirement and what great value pensions actually are.'

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Annuity income drops 14% since January

Incomes from annuities have fallen 14% since the start of the year due to stock market turmoil.

The combined effect of falling share prices and gilt yields has sliced value from both pension investments and annuity rates.

A 65-year-old man with a £100,000 pension pot can only secure an income of £926 per year less than in January, according to Hargreaves Lansdown.

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ABI annuity code is a ‘fudge': McPhail

The Association of British Insurers' (ABI) annuity code of conduct is not radical enough, Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown said.

Yesterday the ABI announced it will create a compulsory code of conduct for members designed to improve the shopping around process for annuities.

Its main proposal was to forbid insurers from including application forms for its own annuity products when sending retirees information packs about their savings.

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