Has it been a year already? Well, not quite but the industry has been working hard to move past The Great Unpleasantness and look to the future. It’s been a busy time and that, we think, merits a refresh.

So we welcome you to our exploration of drawdown income sustainability, TO RETIREMENT AND BEYOND: THE LIFETIME COSTS OF INVESTING – 2021.

Inside you’ll find a look at what’s been happening across the retirement income market since the end of 2020. It’s more than you might think with M&A activity, pricing movement, regulatory developments and, of course, the thing we’d all prefer to just go away now please and thank you. All of which can potentially influence retirement income choices and activity.

We also revisit our three retirement income scenarios, taking a range of on- and off-platform options, their various attaching costs (adviser, provider/platform, wrapper and investment) and how that all adds up over the lifetime of the investment.

TO RETIREMENT AND BEYOND: THE LIFETIME COSTS OF INVESTING – 2021 UPDATE is free to download, thanks to Scottish Widows who sponsored the original paper and this update. Yes, it’s a sponsored paper, yes, Scottish Widows has a commercial interest in the topic and no, they had no editorial sway.

We thank them for making this paper free for everyone to access and you for taking the time to read this updated version. We hope you enjoy it.