How pension providers can show support for Retirement Living Standards

As the award-winning Retirement Living Standards gain momentum in becoming an industry standard in pension scheme communications, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) is asking pension schemes, providers and other stakeholders to publicly show their support for the initiative.

For a small financial donation organisations can join the ‘Friends of the Retirement Living Standards,’ which will fund the necessary further research to ensure the standards remain up to date and relevant. This includes working with Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy to update the constituents of the basket of goods and services that reflect the type of lifestyle retirees can enjoy at three different levels.

Friends of the Retirement Living Standards are recognised on the dedicated website and receive a logo that demonstrates their support for the initiative, which they can use in their communications with members.

Becoming a ‘Friend’ is not a pre-requisite for pension providers and other stakeholders to adopt the Retirement Living Standards, which remain completely free to use, subject to the terms and conditions available on the website.

After only 15 months in operation, the Standards have been widely adopted by schemes and pension communication specialists. Some 14.4 million savers – including over 10 million active savers – have access to the Retirement Living Standards following their adoption by 53 organisations including 30 pension schemes, 17 pension business adopters and six other bodies.

In addition, the Retirement Living Standards continue to receive frequent national media coverage, creating a national conversation about retirement saving. They are also increasingly used by policy bodies, think tanks and even Government bodies when considering pensions adequacy.

The PLSA has set an adoption target of 90% of active savers via scheme adopters by 2025.

Pitched at three levels: minimum, moderate and comfortable, the Standards have been designed to fill the gaps in current approaches and act as a practical and meaningful starting point on a saver’s engagement journey.

Like the ‘5 A Day’ healthy eating maxim, the PLSA hopes the Standards will one day become a rule of thumb for retirement planning – a common language to help the UK engage with retirement saving.

Roughly speaking, a single person will need about £10k a year to achieve the minimum living standard, £20k a year for moderate, and £30k a year for comfortable. Like 5 A Day, this can be briefly summarised as 10k-20k-30k. For couples, it's 15k-30k-45k.

For more information about how you can become a supporter through Friends of the Retirement Living Standards, email Alison.Binks@plsa.co.uk.


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