So there you have it. By the time you read this, swaths of people will have battered down their providers’ doors to get their mitts on their pension pots, to splash on posh cars and cruises. Or not.
Despite myriad polls carried out over recent weeks, nobody really knows what Monday will bring (I suspect chocolate, mostly).
Those who feel obliged to make a choice at all face a perplexing one, in which often there is no single right answer.
The poor trustee, whose role and responsibility has continually been augmenting since even before these latest reforms, will have to step up. But to what extent?
Illustration by Ben Jennings
Many employers and schemes recognise only too well the yawning advice and support gaps heading into these reforms, and the late-developer Pension Wise has failed to mollify those concerned.
But the picture is even less rosy among SMEs. One of last week’s polls, a Now Pensions survey of 400 employers, showed more than half were unaware of Pension Wise and even the reforms themselves.
Not the best time for the government to announce that all promotion of Pension Wise is going to be curtailed for the pre-election period – arguably exactly when it will be needed most.
No wonder employers – that is, the ones actually aware of the reforms – are confused about their role in guiding defined contribution members on their retirement options.
The goodish news is that one in five employers surveyed by Aon Hewitt felt it was their responsibility to guide staff, with a further third saying it should be shared across all stakeholders.
Tellingly, only 8 per cent said it should fall to the government – though that might reflect faith in its ability to do the job effectively rather than a desire to relieve it of the responsibility for seeing people through the reforms it initiated last year.
But ultimately it is the pension saver whose shoulders this will fall on, not just because individualism is inherent to DC, but because neither the full range of flexibilities nor the support and advice networks will be in place from the get-go.
I think it will be a relief all round if most people heeded Steve Webb’s ‘hold your horses’ approach and did nothing.
Maxine Kelly is acting editor of Pensions Expert. You can follow her on Twitter @MaxineEK and the team @pensions_expert.
