Financial wellness is an increasingly important string to providers’ bows.
Six provider propositions from Aviva, Cushon, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown, Scottish Widows and Standard Life achieved an overall gold rating for their achievements in a number of their propositions.
The ratings are designed to assist benefits consultants, corporate advisers and employers assess products that will improve member and employee outcomes and help improve financial wellness and resilience in a meaningful way.
The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic encouraged employers to place far greater emphasis on the importance of financial stress and its impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of their workers. Employees who have greater confidence about their finances are happier and more productive.
Many workplace pension providers have enhanced their financial wellness propositions to incorporate tools, information and services to help people to take control of their finances.
The ratings offer insights into workplace pension providers’ tools and services, helping advisers and employers to identify propositions that will help improve members’ financial outcomes.
Going for gold
Eleven providers were benchmarked against a number of subcategories in the Financial Wellness without open finance ratings, which this year included financial health checks and pension scams for the first time.
Pension scams was also the category that received the highest number of gold ratings. This demonstrates the risk to individual savers and the effort providers are going to in attempting to defeat the criminals targeting members.
Only five providers – Aviva, Mercer, Scottish Widows, Standard Life and True Potential – were benchmarked in the Financial Wellness with open finance category.
As with open banking, open finance gives members the ability to securely share their financial data – including all monthly savings and expenses – with providers so they can ensure members are making their money work as hard as possible.
A separate set of standalone Financial Wellness with open finance ratings will be published next week looking at each providers’ proposition in greater detail.
Building financial resilience
Benefits Guru head of workplace research Jason Green said: “It’s exciting to see providers adapt their proposition with innovative and market-leading initiatives that will help consumers through their life-long savings journey.
“Financial resilience, security and stability remain a key concern for consumers. Workplace pension providers are shaking off their image as a traditional long-term saving plan, which can only be accessed at retirement by building tools and services which are relevant today to help plan for tomorrow.
“They are increasingly well-placed [to] build a financial resilience mindset and helping consumers be more comfortable with their finances. Many have the ability to not only build a pension pot, but to help get us there by managing outstanding debt, build emergency cash funds and save for short and mid-term goals from holidays to house renovations.”
Foster Denovo chief operating officer Helen Lovett said the ratings are “extremely valuable” for advisers and help them to determine which providers will be most appropriate for their clients’ businesses.
“To be able to get a high-level overview of who is offering what in this space, makes keeping on track of industry changes much easier,” said Lovett.
“The extensive research provides a flexible basis for comparing the features and functionality between over 20 pension providers and can assist in finding the right providers for our employer customers.”
