Money Mail Campaign 'Unlock Our Pensions'

[snowhead]

I seem to have missed that bit. Can you quote the paragraph please?

Last week, Money Mail revealed that Mr Kirby, Mr Harrington and senior civil servants, attended a secretive meeting with insurance bosses in the lavish Gleneagles Hotel. The meeting at the exclusive Scottish golf resort took place just weeks before the annuities U-turn was announced, and it has since emerged both Mr Harrington and Mr Kirby made speeches to the conference.
......
A Treasury spokesman says: 'The decision involved extensive engagement with financial regulators, consumer groups and industry, during which it became clear that it was not possible to guarantee consumers would get good value and may have been put at risk.'

Read more: Can MPs who stopped savers cashing in annuities really understand their pain? | This is Money - http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-3962662/The-pensions-divide-MPs-stopped-savers-cashing-annuities-really-understand-pain.html#ixzz4R6toLbL1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[HandySparks]

Last week, Money Mail revealed that Mr Kirby, Mr Harrington and senior civil servants, attended a secretive meeting with insurance bosses in the lavish Gleneagles Hotel. The meeting at the exclusive Scottish golf resort took place just weeks before the annuities U-turn was announced, and it has since emerged both Mr Harrington and Mr Kirby made speeches to the conference.
......
A Treasury spokesman says: 'The decision involved extensive engagement with financial regulators, consumer groups and industry, during which it became clear that it was not possible to guarantee consumers would get good value and may have been put at risk.'

Read more: Can MPs who stopped savers cashing in annuities really understand their pain? | This is Money - http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-3962662/The-pensions-divide-MPs-stopped-savers-cashing-annuities-really-understand-pain.html#ixzz4R6toLbL1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Ah, yes, I thought that would be the one. It just says that they had a meeting. Doesn't say who called the meeting or what was discussed or agreed at that meeting.

 

[snowhead]

There's a better explanation here and it's nothing to do with not being able to afford it;

Government right to shelve annuity sales, says industry - BBC News - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37692225

 

[Midwest]

Ah, yes, I thought that would be the one. It just says that they had a meeting. Doesn't say who called the meeting or what was discussed or agreed at that meeting.

Perhaps they discussed their handicaps or the 19th tee?

 

[Midwest]

Doesn't help people like tels wife. Give her back the remainder of her pot, less any monthly payments she's received. The insurance company will have already made money thus far by investing the pot in hedge funds or whatever. Do you really think people would take out such contracts, if they knew would get such small returns?

 

[HandySparks]

Doesn't help people like tels wife. Give her back the remainder of her pot, less any monthly payments she's received.

Quite agree that this would be the best option here. However that was never on the table, only a separate deal offering a (likely low) lump sum in exchange for the annuity income.

 

[Midwest]

Quite agree that this would be the best option here. However that was never on the table, only a separate deal offering a (likely low) lump sum in exchange for the annuity income.

They had the choice then, but not now it seems. The lady In the piece has a monthly pension of £59, from a lump sum of £14000. She will have to reach her 81st birthday to break even. In the meantime, the insurance company, will make an investment on her pot.
It would have been done to the individuals to make the choice. This is not about people squandering their pensions, but make an alternate use of a poorly funded or mis-sold investment.

 

[HandySparks]

They had the choice then, but not now it seems. The lady In the piece has a monthly pension of £59, from a lump sum of £14000. She will have to reach her 81st birthday to break even. In the meantime, the insurance company, will make an investment on her pot.

This is an annuity rate of 5%, which is in the right ballpark. The insurance company will invest the money, but since they have guaranteed her £59 a month for life, they will probably have invested in lower risk (and therefore lower return) investments. They could be paying out for another 20 years after she's 'broken even'. That's their risk and is why an annuity can seem poor value for money.

The real problems are the rising life expectancy, which hasn't been properly addressed by governments until relatively recently, plus the generally poor financial education, which means that most people don't realise how much a decent pension really costs.

Maybe people should still have the choice to 'sell' their annuities, but in practice, no one would have found an acceptable deal.

 

[Midwest]

The only acceptable part in this, is these insurance companies would of had to put aside a large some of money to pay back these annuities (like Barclays having to put aside 1 billion £ for PPI), so they went crying to the Government.

In the example, receiving £59 a month as a pension, compared the new state pension of £155 a week, just how worthless some of these pensions are. Again in this example, the lady was going to put her pot towards getting a car, so she could visit her elderly parents. Until you're are locked into these worthless pensions, you cannot understand how frustrating and in this case, distressing they are.