Research: NEST Insight: Life events and pension engagement

NEST Insight, a research unit set up by NEST Corporation and Vanguard, has been looking at whether pension savers are more likely to interact with their pensions savings around specific ‘life events’, such as round number birthdays, marriage and the birth of a child.

Key findings:

• A teachable moment is an event that: increases perceptions of personal risk and outcome expectancies; prompts strong affective or emotional responses; and  re-defines self-concept or social role.
• No matter how suited a life event may be for pension communication, a pension scheme needs to be able to detect a life event in a timely way.
• All interviewees said they would appreciate more personalised communication that’s been adapted to their own individual situation.
• Life events create a variety of responses, such as emotions and stress, which may have the opposite impact on a saver’s openness to communications.

NEST Insight, Maastricht University and Netspar conducted a series of interviews with pension experts and pension savers for this research.