The Cost of Waiting:
HOW DELAYING YOUR PENSION COULD COST YOU £100,000+ Written by Jeff Pollock Private Wealth Partner
Most people don’t ignore their pension because they’re careless. They ignore it because it feels like something that can wait. “I’ll sort it later” is one of the most common phrases I hear, especially from people in their forties and early fifties. Work is busy. Life is expensive. Retirement still feels far enough away to deal with another day. A delayed pension
Why 45–55 Can be the Most Expensive Time to Delay In your thirties, waiting wastes opportunity. In your late fifties, waiting limits options. Between 45 and 55, waiting does something more damaging. It quietly locks in outcomes. At this stage, most people already have several pensions from previous jobs, often sitting in default funds, invested cautiously or inconsistently, and rarely reviewed. Contributions may have stayed flat while income has risen. Charges may be higher than necessary. Risk may
review isn’t a missed growth opportunity. It’s a
no longer reflect how close retirement really is.
six-figure decision you made without realising it.
None of these issues feel urgent on their own.
The problem is that pensions don’t stand still
Together, over ten or fifteen years, they can easily
while you wait. And by the time “later” arrives,
amount to a six-figure shortfall.
the cost of that delay is often far higher than
Not because markets collapsed, or because
people expect.
reckless decisions were made. But because nothing changed.
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