Pensions are a Lottery.I have never gambled.

bostonerimus

Mustbeananswer?? wrote: »

Thanks to all.I am 60 early next year and still manage to play football (badly) with Lads a fraction of my age.I think I'm going to around for a while yet.I have a picture of an old football team I used to play for when I was 12 and a third of them have passed on....so I'm very grateful for my health ..I don't know what price you would put on that??

Of course if things continue I'm going to be better off taking the annuity.Many thanks to the author of the quoted paragraph....it sort of covered it all!!

Whether you'll be better off with a life time annuity or drawdown from a defined contribution pension pot depends on how long you live and the relative returns of the annuity and the investments in the DC pension pot. Right now the initial payout rates (and implied internal rates of return assuming an average life span) are abysmal for lifetime annuities. There's a good chance that with sensible investments you'll do better with a DC drawdown......of course there's a chance you'll do worse too. The key is to come up with sensible estimates and statistics for all these unknowns and then design your retirement income. That might include a small lifetime annuity to supplement your state pension to give you an ok guaranteed index linked lifetime income and then leaving some in DC investments to look for some growth and maybe to leave some money to heirs.

Thrugelmir

Mustbeananswer?? wrote: »

Of course the value to you of your Occupational Pension depends on how long you live.

Do you insure your property against the risk of being burnt down? The fact is you are more likely to die than claim on your insurance policy for such an event. The whole point behind insurance and assurance is to nullify such outcomes.

Terron

I feel that my first pensions were a bit of a lottery. I went with Norwich Union (now Aviva) and thanks to a GAR of 10.6% they are looking good. But if I had gone with Equitable Life

enthusiasticsaver

In no way would I look on occupational pensions as a lottery. The only reason my DH and I have been able to retire early is due to overpayment on pensions (and our mortgage) and investing which is also looked at as gambling by some people. Pensions are a highly efficient way of saving for long term future in a tax efficient way. It is also a way to get essentially free money from the HMRC and your employer. Yes, none of us knows how long we will live and means tested benefits may not be offered to us because our income will be too high but who wants to rely on the current government of the day to top up a measly income when you could be in control of your own finances?

The pensions you talk about are annuitys or DB pensions anyway which are becoming few and far between. If you have a DC pot and you do not draw it down then this will be left for your heirs.