Putting short-term returns into context for your members

Saving for a pension is a long-term commitment and a potentially daunting one for DC members. Questions like, “what level of pension will I need?”, “how much should I save each month?”, and “when can I reasonably expect to retire?” aren’t straightforward to answer so it is perhaps understandable that members can become confused and disengaged from their pension without help. At Hymans Robertson, our Guided Outcomes technology can help members answer these types of questions and set savings strategies to help reach their retirement goals.

Changes to personal circumstances or unexpected changes in markets, such as those experienced recently, can lead to behaviours from savers which impact their longer-term outcomes. It’s important that pension sponsors and fiduciaries continue to communicate with members, particularly during times of change. Indeed, the emergence of COVID-19, its tragic consequences and the resulting economic turmoil is a reminder of just how quickly things can change. 

Tracking member outcomes

To help you put recent market events into context for your members, we’ve developed the Hymans Member Outcomes Tracker. By illustrating the impact on longer term outcomes, our tracker can help you identify potential areas of focus when communicating with different groups of members.

Recent falls in markets have inevitably reduced expected retirement incomes but whether members should reconsider their retirement options due to these falls, or simply “weather the storm”, is perhaps less clear.

Our tracker monitors changes to the expected retirement incomes (excluding State Pension) of three typical members, who could represent members of your arrangement:

Please contact your usual Hymans consultant if you have any questions, or if you’d like to use the tracker to support your ongoing governance arrangements.