Retirement income: the least-worst options

Ultra-low bond yields are making annuities none too attractive these days. And if you choose to 'drawdown', you expose yourself to the whims of the market, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But there is a third option.

If you're on the verge of retirement you probably aren't too impressed with your pension options. In the past,anyone hitting retirement age tended to use their pension savings to buy an annuity. They then had an income for life and that was that.

But due to rock bottom gilt yields, annuities aren't looking too attractive at the moment. Say you have toiled away for years and saved up £500,000 in a pension. You might have briefly thought yourself rich. But a quick look at the annuity tables will prove that you are not. Your income via an annuity will be around £30,000 if you accept that it will not be protected from inflation. Go index linked and it will be more like £18,000.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.