Following our coverage of Norwich Union and Prudential looking to design new pension annuities, the Government seems to have ignored the idea.
The Treasury have been consulting on ways to modernise pension annuities to help restore peoples faith in pensions and encourage saving. They recently produced a document that highlighted the main ideas and areas but money back annuities were left out.
The idea for money back annuities seemed well received as it allowed people to pass any unused pension fund on death to their families. This differs to the current rules which say that if you are in receipt of a pension annuity and die, the company providing the annuity gets a windfall as they don't have to pay out any longer.
When questioned as to why money back annuities had been left out of the document, a Treasury spokesperson said, "this is nothing sinister against money back annuities".
It is clear that Norwich Union and Prudential will continue to push these new types of annuity towards the Government. Let's hope they start taking some notice!
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