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Scottish Widows evolves workplace default
Graeme Bold
Managing Director, Workplace and Intermediary Wealth, Scottish Widows
27th March 2025
Scottish Widows has today released details of how the largest, longest running default in the market, known as Pension Investment Approaches (PIA), is evolving for the future - with the launch of Scottish Widows Lifetime Investment.
Lifetime Investment - the new default - will be available immediately for new employers and for all customers on a self-select basis. Existing customers, who are invested in the current £60bn+ PIA default offering, will also transition to the new default, ensuring that they too benefit from the enhancements.
The new approach has been developed to maximise pension growth potential for customers, helping them to meet their retirement goals. Lifetime Investment has a high exposure to equities in its growth phase and a shorter de-risking phase*, leaving customers’ pension savings invested in higher-growth assets for longer to boost potential returns.
Scottish Widows has also worked on an exclusive basis with leading asset manager Robeco to ensure the new default delivers on its responsible investing commitments. With research showing that customers increasingly want their pensions invested in a way that improves the world that they will retire into**, the new funds will tilt towards companies that have a positive impact on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals***.
Customers will continue to benefit from Scottish Widows’ open architecture approach to investment management, which enables the business to select leading managers in their respective fields, including BlackRock, State Street Global Advisors, Aberdeen and Robeco.
The new default will offer members a choice between two risk options – the Growth Path, where 100% of savings will be invested into growth assets initially, and the Balanced Growth Path, where 85% of savings will be invested in growth assets. The remaining 15% will be invested into more defensive assets.
Regardless of the chosen glidepath, both options will begin to derisk from 12 years out from a customer’s chosen Selected Retirement Age (SRA). The default derisking path will target drawdown, but members who wish to purchase an annuity or take their savings as cash will be able to access glidepaths that specifically target these outcomes.
As a key enhancement, Scottish Widows will also continue to derisk customers beyond SRA, creating a to-and-through retirement option. Overall, this approach enables customers to maintain exposure to growth assets for longer, while dialling down the risk in later years, when customers are less able to recover from market shocks.
Scottish Widows also plans to incorporate private markets investment into its proposition, with further details to be announced soon.
Graeme Bold, Managing Director, Workplace and Intermediary Wealth, Scottish Widows, said: “The introduction of Lifetime Investment comes at a time where more and more savers are at risk of a poor standard of living in retirement or having to work longer to supplement their income. In fact, our research shows that nearly half (47%) of over 55s fear that they will run out of money during retirement. The new default has been developed as a direct response to these issues, as we aim to give savers the best chance of maximising the growth of their retirement pots.
“PIA has constantly evolved over the nearly two decades since launch and has performed for members over this time. We are excited to evolve this into Lifetime Investment to take account of changes, such as longer life expectancies and phasing of retirement. Whilst today’s announcement is an exciting milestone for us, there’s more to come as Lifetime Investment evolves and we continue to work towards better retirement outcomes for our customers.”
Notes
*De-risking - Lifetime Investment starts to move members into lower-risk investments 12 years from their selected retirement age. With PIA this currently starts at 15 years.
**Data taken from Scottish Widows’ Responsibly Invested Pensions Report 2025 (PDF, 2MB)
***The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global objectives established by the United Nations in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. These goals aim to address a broad range of interconnected global challenges, including poverty eradication, environmental sustainability, social equity and economic growth under the guiding principle of "leaving no one behind." The SDGs apply universally to all countries, irrespective of their development status, and seek to promote peace, prosperity, and the health of the planet. Each goal is further divided into specific targets—totalling 169—and measured by 232 unique indicators to track progress.
About Scottish Widows
Founded in 1815, Scottish Widows is part of Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s largest digital bank and financial services group. With more than £226bn assets under administration and 10 million customers, Scottish Widows’ award‐winning product range includes workplace and individual pensions, annuities, life cover, critical illness and income protection, as well as savings and investment products.
More than 2 million customers access Scottish Widows products and services through the Lloyds Bank and Scottish Widows apps, in addition to accessing directly through independent financial advisers. The Scottish Widows Platform is trusted by more than 18,000 advisers and 5,400 advice firms, which manage the pensions and investments of almost 166,000 clients.