FCA confirms annuity comparison tables and new wake-up packs

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has made it a requirement for firms to rank their annuity products against their peers and simplify the information they give to consumers in the form of wake-up packs.

The regulator found a lot of consumers were not getting the best deals in retirement because bad communication from their provider stopped them shopping around in the open market. It will ask firms to redesign their wake-up packs, and to consider including signposting letters and standardised pensions statements, before trialing them on consumers over the coming months. Firms will also need to rank their annuity products against their peers so that consumers can "easily identify" if they could be getting a better deal by shopping around. The proposals were first published in an int...