The pensions and insurance advisory company, Friends Life, have revealed findings that nearly two in three would-be pensioners over the age of 50 have never increased the amount they contribute to their pension pot.
The survey of 1,606 people aged 50-64 across the UK, found that 90% of future retirees had not even considered increasing their pension contributions. Of those surveyed, one in four stated that they believed they had already saved enough in their earlier years of work, thus providing them with a comfortable retirement fund. For some, this may be enough. As the expected retirement age will rise to 67 by 2028 for both men and women, many people may be expecting to work longer, therefore being able to save more for their retirement.
On the other hand, a third of respondents believe that they could not have realistically done anything differently to save more money than they had. This could be the result of the rising cost of living, hence money not going as far as it used to. As expenses are stretched, some people may have struggled to contribute significant amounts of money to their pension funds.
Managing Director for Corporate Benefits at Friends Life, Colin Williams, said that once people understand the mechanisms of their pension pot, ‘they can make informed changed to their contributions to help increase their final pot size to better meet their retirement needs.’ With this understanding, for those looking to obtain a retirement mortgage, their application would benefit if they had additional pension savings.
