New, innovative ways of explaining the pension freedoms must be found, an Aegon director says, after research showed widespread ignorance more than two years after they were first announced.

A third of the UK population don’t know anything about the reforms introduced in April 2015, Aegon’s fifth UK Readiness Report suggested. 

This lack of awareness grew amongst the younger age groups with 40% aged 25 – 34 years old not having heard of pension freedoms. The Chancellor first revealed the fundamental changes to the pension system in March 2014.

Some 32% of the 4,000 people surveyed said they’ve heard about the freedoms, but admitted failing to understand what the changes mean for their own retirement savings.

Aegon’s pensions director Steven Cameron, said: “These findings set a clear challenge to both the industry and Government to take further steps to provide new, innovative ways of explaining what the pension freedoms are, and their potential impact on the retirement prospects of individuals.

“With freedom comes personal responsibility and our industry also needs to innovate to find ways of protecting individuals from running out of pension funds when they still have many years of retirement to go.”

“We also need to promote the range of sources of support for savers from information, to Pension Wise guidance, up to full professional financial advice.

“The recent Financial Advice Market Review is looking to plug remaining ‘advice gaps’ and these need to look specifically at wide support for pension freedoms.”

Some 15% said, however, they were saving more in light of the reforms.