3 good reasons to talk about pensions

Talking about money and pensions makes sense and can make employees happier 

Will pensions ever be something that people talk about routinely, perhaps over their lunch break, or over dinner at home with family. “How’s your pension doing?” or “are we going to save a bit more this year, now that the car is paid off?”

While some people are already good at this, there’s still some way to go. As the Pension Attention Campaign recently highlighted, 14% of people say they never talk about their pensions, and that works out at more than 7 million of the UK adult population.¹

Talk Money Week from 4 November is encouraging people to talk about their money, including their pensions – and do just one thing to improve their finances.

With new research² showing around 12% of UK adults feel less stressed when they talk about their future finances and can plan for the long term, it makes good sense.

There are a few things worth considering on the pensions front. Here are three of them: 

1. Find out what they’ve got 

Getting people to look at what they’ve got is the message behind our 2024 ‘Know it, Grow it’ Pension Engagement Season (PES) campaign.

More than 7,000 members joined our employer PES webinars this year to find out more about managing their pension, finding lost ones, and steps they could take to grow their savings.

Members can use the app to find out what they have, keep an eye on their investments, and even bring in pensions from other providers so they can see what their pension pots from various providers add up to.

This has really taken off over the past year thanks to our in-app open finance technology. Well ahead of the Government’s pension dashboard, members are effectively building their very own dashboard in the app.

Once they know what they have, they can think about what to do next.

The question members ask us most in our webinars is what they can do about multiple pensions. We let them know that combining them can cut charges and make things easier to manage, as long as any older-style pensions don’t have special guarantees they wouldn’t want to lose. The app has lots of info. 

2. Find a ‘lost’ pension 

With new research from the PPI showing that there’s £31.1bn in lost pensions³, checking for one is well worth doing. During Pension Engagement Season we helped a member find a lost pension worth £21,000 this year. Understandably, they were thrilled.

Yes, the government pension dashboard will help here as too many people lose track when they move jobs and change addresses without letting their pension provider know. And they need to know what they’ve got so they have a better idea of how much they’ve saved towards their future. The Government’s Pension Tracing Service is a good starting point.

3. Tackle money worries 

Yes, it’s good to talk in the good times but just as important to talk when things feel tough.

Data shows that around a quarter of customers in our wider Lloyds Banking Group can be classed as financially vulnerable in some way. They could be struggling with the cost-of-living, bereavement, be physically or emotionally unwell, or getting cancer treatment. They might not be able to speak English well and risk being financially disadvantaged as a result.

The reality is most of us will become vulnerable at some point in our lives and our vulnerable customer strategy is how we support those who need it.

Our ‘tell us once’ approach means we can flag people as vulnerable with their permission, avoiding the need for them to mention it again whey they phone us. Talking with them, we can signpost them to our partnerships such as Citizens Advice and Macmillan to get them support.

Then there’s our ability to talk with pension members in their own language through our colleagues who speak their language. Where they can’t help, our partnership with Clear Voice offers translation support in more than 200 languages and we can call on that in minutes.

We’ve talked about pensions in Ukrainian, Chinese, Portuguese, German, and many more languages. For some members, it’s the first time they’ve understood what their pension is, and how their employer is saving alongside them.

So yes, it’s good to talk.

Talk Money Week is from 4 November. Scottish Widows has financial wellbeing support on the Be Money Well support hub.

Sources:

1. Pension Attention Campaign commissioned OnePoll to survey a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults aged 18+ in July 2024.
2. Money and Pensions Service
3. PPI lost pensions: Briefing Note 138 - Lost Pensions 2024 | Pensions Policy Institute