The Pig Has It

Go onto Google Images, type in ‘pension’ and then see what comes up. Actually, I can tell you what comes up. Ignoring news stories, in the first 100 or so images there were 10 pictures of cash in a jar, 19 ‘beautiful couples’, 12 eggs in and out of baskets, 4 moneyboxes, 6 road signs and a few deckchairs. And twenty-three piggybanks. That's right. Twenty-three pigs.

Is that the best we can do?! Is that a good summary of our ability to convey ‘pensions’ in pictures? You see, if you go behind the picture on Google, to the sites, they almost all lead to providers, consultants and clients pension funds.

Surely we can be more imaginative than a piggy bank? If a picture paints a thousand words, aren’t we falling a bit short with coins in a jar? So come on AHC, Likeminds, Shilling, Ferrier Pearce and all you other pension communication companies…..not to mention the internal departments in actuarial firms…. where are the new ideas? What can we convey that doesn’t include a piggy bank held in the hands of a beautiful couple in a deckchair under a road sign?!

Doing Things Differently

The headlines in today's Telegraph make sobering reading for those in the pension industry:

'I lost £150,000 due to Nineties pension sales frenzy.' 

This refers to the mis-selling scandal of course and tracks the story of one ex-soldier who was persuaded to transfer to a personal pension from the Armed Forces Plan. Disastrous results. And with many of those poor decisions reaping a poor pension, we will be seeing more of this in the press as people reach retirement.

'Pensions' doesn't have a great reputation anyway and these stories are not going to help. Warren Buffett said 'it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.' And we are doing things differently. But history and reputation are against us.

GOPM RIP, long live.... ?

Sad that AHC have pulled out of their networking, in particular Grumpy Old Pension Men. But they have to concentrate on client work. I wish them well.

What next? It think the concept of GOPM is a good one. A tongue in cheek look at pensions news with some serious comment as well. And all in 5 to 10 minutes. It's still on Youtube if you want to take a look. So, maybe Brian and I can reinvent GOPM? Let's see....

In the meantime, as I've left AHC, this site has changed too. Pensionweb has gone, Pension Quirks has arrived. Pensions can be fun! Yes, really.

50 Up

Phew. We've made it to 50 editions of Grumpy Old Pension Men. Who would have thought?! When Brian and I started out a year ago, it was just a test programme, to try and prove it could be done.

A year later and the 50th edition is on line.

Favourite moments? Brian forgetting what he's talking about (common), Henry Tapper's larger than life appearances, presenting a pensions top 10 to the Top of the Pops music. And all the lovely comments.

Will we get beyond 50. Certainly! 51 is already recorded. And after that? As always, it's a week by week decision related to readership, time taken and pensions news worth discussing. Never any lack of the latter though!

EIOPA - Blind or Just Short Sighted?

Dear Pensions Industry

We here at the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority really love you guys. We want to work more closely. So please willyou pay us some money so we can help you? We’ve given you Solvency II. That went well. And now we want to do more for you. More regulations! More directives! You’ll love it!

So pay up. Please.

Love, EIOPA

That’s the latest story to come out of this myopically challenged EU quango. Really?! Do they not get it? They have totally messed up on Solvency II. It cost us an amazing amount in time and energy just to pushback on over 500 pages of short sighted proposals. If they had been enacted, it would more than likely have destroyed UK pensions.

And now they want us to pay them to bully us some more. Hmmm.

Second Rate and More Expensive?

There was an interesting article in Investment and Pensions Europe magazine the other day. Reporting on an OECD review of pensions in Ireland, the OECD recommended pensions compulsion. They indicated that their view of Auto-Enrolment was that it was second rate and more expensive.

My initial reaction was one of scorn. After all, aren't these OECD bods from Europe somewhere, clearly not British. But having set aside my Britannia prejudices, further thought on their comment suggests they may be right.

Let's deal with the easier one first. Yes, Auto-Enrolment is bound to be more expensive than mandatory plans. All the opting in and opting out results in complex administration and, I would suggest (well and truly wearing my Grumpy Old Pension Men hat), it produces a good income to a lot of providers and administrators. One compulsory system is definitely cheaper.

Now the more difficult argument. Compulsion or Auto-Enrolment? In the end, I think it is more to do with politics than pensions, as is often the case. Thatcher destroyed compulsion. Blair put Frank Field out to grass when Field 'thought the unthinkable' - and it proved to be just that!

Australia, New Zealand and Chile were the countries Field looked at. It works there. It could have worked here. But too late now I think. We have Auto-Enrolment for better or for worse. More expensive yes. But second rate? Not necessarily. We have to face up to extended longevity, to the fact that 'pensions' will never be top of a young persons shopping list and push on through. It has to work.

Politics in Pensions

Roger Mattingly, chair at the Society of Pension Consultants commented in the press that if Auto-Enrolment did not work, it would be the end to the careers of Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, and his other pension colleagues. I think Roger has got it wrong. (Professional Pensions 11 March).

Steve Webb is a Liberal Democrat. He has no political ambition! It’s a surprise to him that he’s in power at all! His boss Iain Duncan Smith has been to the top of the party and back again- so he is a rare thing, an altruistic Tory!

It is to the pension industry’s advantage that we have two ministers involved in pensions policy  that are able for the most part to keep the politics on the side lines and do what’s right.

As for Roger’s comments, who’s the real one being political then?