While I hope this website gives you a flavour of our approach to financial planning, our main commitment is to provide quality person-to-person financial advice, where myself and the rest of the team look forward to hearing from you soon..."
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Clean Up Your Pension Investment Options with OMO
OMO stands for the open market option, which allows savers to take an annuity income from a different insurer to the one that managed their pension fund up to retirement.
OMO was introduced 30 years ago to help give consumers better choice at retirement.
To date, the insurance industry has not made the benefits of OMO clear to its investors.
Indeed, in a recent survey the Financial Services Authority (FSA) found that two out of every five insurers had failed to provide their investors with even the most basic information about taking their personal pension on retirement.
According to ABI Research, two-thirds of retirees do not fully utilise their OMO.
Making investors aware of OMO is important, because many can boost their income by switching providers. For those in poor health, their pensions can rise by as much as 30 per cent over standard rates.
The good news is that the FSA has given the insurance industry until the end of the year to get its house in order and provide better advice to investors – or face heavy fines.
We take time to provide investors with the information they need to make an informed choice – and with the products that will allow them to build flexibility into their long term retirement income plans.
Did you know that:
- OMO – open market option – rights were introduced 30 years ago to allow retirees to choose where they by their annuity without being tied to their pension provider?
- In that time, only one-third of retirees have fully utilised their OMO?
- 400,000 individuals with £11 billion of pensions savings opted for a traditional lifetime annuity in 2007, regardless of age and health?
- The retirement age is due to be raised to 68 by 2046, and an amendment to the Pensions Bill could raise to 85 the age at which retirees must use their pension funds to either buy a lifetime annuity or move into an alternatively secured pension?
- The expected years of life free from limiting long standing illness or disability for a 65-year-old man was 9.9 years in 2007, and 10.7 years for a similarly aged woman?
- 87 per cent of annuities sold are level annuities, most on a single life basis?
- In 2006, the average age at which workers retired over the age of 50 reached its highest level for men (64.2 years) and it second highest for women (61.8 years) since records began in 1984?
- Also in 2006, only 10 per cent had a good idea of what their retirement income would be, while 47 per cent had no idea?
- Only 19 per cent of pensioner couples and seven per cent of single pensioners received personal pension income in 2005/06?