MGM Advantage: Improving DC pension benefits

MGM Advantage has today welcomed the ABI's paper ‘Time for Change: Seven proposals to improve DC pension benefits in retirement', which intends to improve options for taking retirement income from Defined Contribution pensions.

However, the retirement income specialist believes that these proposals are only part of the solution to making sure everyone gets the most from their pension savings when they retire.

MGM Advantage believes that encouraging people to use the Open Market Option (OMO) has to be the starting point for galvanising real change as it will make people aware of the range of annuity products on the market and the choices available to them at retirement.

Chris Evans, CEO, MGM Advantage says: "We welcome any moves that give people more control, choice and flexibility over how their pension savings will provide an income for the rest of their life at retirement.  However, pushing out the age requirement for buying an annuity from 75 years to 80 years is meaningless without increased awareness of the options available and giving people more flexibility over their income once they have annuitised.

"The retirement income market has developed significantly in recent years and shopping around would allow people to see that there is so much more out there to meet their needs, whether they're looking for the potential for investment growth, the flexibility to vary their income at key stages of retirement or the chance to secure a higher income because they are in poor health.

"Shopping around is easy to do, especially with the help of a financial adviser and the industry needs to do all that it can to explain the possible ways people could increase their retirement income by a significant amount of money."