| 15 years with profits down the pan
Just Retirement claims that failing to investigate an enhanced annuity at retirement could be equivalent to throwing away 15 years of extra fund performance.
Recently produced individual pension results from Money Management show the average maturity value of With-Profits pensions was £56,518 in the 15 years to 1st January 2007. The top performing policy produced £77,130: 36% more than the average. And yet, failing to claim an enhancement could mean that even a client in the best performing plan could end up little better off than someone in an average fund.
Peter Ellis, Head of Annuities at Just Retirement, points out that a standard annuity as low as £4,900 per year could be bought with a fund of £77,130, according to the FSA tables, whereas a fund of £56,518 could obtain an enhanced rate of slightly more: £4,934.
Watchdog urges restraint in drawdown advice
People approaching retirement are being urged not to jump into income drawdown schemes following cases of individuals taking on too much risk with their savings because of poor financial advice. The warning comes as the Financial Ombudsman Service, which resolves disputes between firms and their customers, has highlighted a number of cases where individuals have taken unnecessary risk with their pension pots after being wrongly advised to go into drawdown instead of buying an annuity. .
Retirement village residents sent eviction notices
EMMA ALBERICI: Five hundred elderly residents may soon find themselves homeless, after being told that their retirement villages must be vacated by the end of May.
The 10 retirement villages around Australia are managed by Village Life and owned by the Gold Coast property group MFS Diversified Trust.
Residents in these homes, some aged in their nineties, have received letters telling them that they must move out by May the 28th.
One aged care group says it's a crisis for these people who are mainly low-income pensioners with nowhere else to go.
Alison Caldwell reports.
ALISON CALDWELL: The World Today understands Village Life wrote to the residents telling them that the owner MFS would be taking vacant possession of the 10 villages at the end of May.
Is $20Ga windfall error or identity theft?
Q: I'm 52 years old and still working. I recently got my annual statement from Social Security. It shows almost $65,000 in earnings for 2005. But I know I only made about $45,000 that year. What should I do? A: Keep your mouth shut and don't tell anyone about it! Those extra earnings can only increase your future Social Security retirement benefit, i.e., the more earnings on your Social Security record, the higher your potential monthly Social Security check. Anyway, that's what the smart aleck Social Security columnist would tell you. But the conscientious Social Security columnist would tell you to contact the Social Security Administration right away to re solve the discrepancy. Call them at (800) 772-1213. They'll ask you to show them a copy of your 2005 W-2 form.
IRAs can make your retirement years even more golden
If you've been paying attention in the last quarter century, you've noticed a gradual shift in responsibility for who's going to pay for your retirement. The message becomes more clear with each new piece of tax legislation and every time a major employer freezes its pension plan. More and more, it seems, we are on our own.
The largest generation America has ever birthed is reaching retirement age. By their very numbers, 78 million baby boomers are forcing society to rethink how retirement will be financed.
Yet as our responsibility for paying for retirement increases, so does the opportunity to make those years even more golden. We have powerful tools at our disposal, but it appears we've yet to learn how to utilize them fully.
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, individual retirement accounts held $3.67 trillion in assets in 2005.
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