UK. Life expectancy advice risks turning savers into spenders
Online calculators that tell people their life expectancy may be having the perverse effect of discouraging them from choosing a guaranteed income in retirement, according to academic research.
The study of 2,000 people found that they were less likely to buy an annuity — a guaranteed income for life — after using official life expectancy calculators such as that on the government’s Pension Wise service.
People appeared to be making decisions that conventional economics could not explain when confronted with the inevitability of death or the fear that they had led an insignificant life, the study found. Since the pension freedoms of 2015, hundreds of thousands of people have been given the option of tapping their pension pots in any way they like from the…
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