“Decision support can activate participants to make appropriate choices” Deciding when to retire – earlier, later or at the retirement age – concerns more than just pension size, life expectancy and desired standard of living. Participants need to understand the consequences of alternatives on offer, as the fuzzy trace theory explains. We therefore preliminarily investigated two new forms of decision support (Value Clarification Method…

On July 1, 2023, the Future Pensions Act entered into force in The Netherlands. The objectives of this law as formulated by the legislator are an earlier perspective of an inflation-linked pension, a more transparent and personal pension and a better alignment with developments in society and the labor market. In the coming period, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment will monitor whether…

“How to deal with purchasing power risks in the benefits of the new Dutch pension contract” In the design of the new Dutch pension contract several instruments are available to deal with expected and unexpected inflation. In this paper we analyze the impact of these instruments. Expected inflation can be compensated by reducing the initial benefit. Unexpected inflation can be covered using the solidarity…

“Protection of pension benefits through personal wealth is more transparent and effective than through the solidarity reserve. It also prevents new pay-as-you-go funding.” When designing new pension plans, much attention is paid to limiting (the risk of) pension reductions. The so-called Ortec method does this by using the solidarity reserve from which pension income is supplemented, if necessary. We propose an alternative method, the…

“Social preferences reflect altruism, reciprocity and self-interest” With the introduction of the new Dutch pension contract, many industry-wide pension funds opt for the solidarity contribution scheme that gives a prominent role to the joint buffer (solidarity reserve). However, to what extent do participants support this buffer and do social preferences in that support exist? We investigated this in a representative survey of participants in…

On January 1, 2024, Dr. Lisa Brüggen was appointed Endowed Professor of Retirement Communications and Choice Guidance. This chair is established and funded by Instituut Gak. The pensions landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades. This shift has led to a greater need for effective retirement communications and choice guidance. It is for this reason that the endowed chair of Retirement Communications and Choice…

“Ethical tools and frameworks can facilitate the implementation of AIbased advice” Consumers need to be well-informed about their financial situation to be able to take action when this changes. Automated financial advice could increase consumers’ access to financial advice and, consequently, their financial well-being. Although such advice already exists for various financial products, holistic, automated financial advice has not yet entered the market. This…

Have you already made arrangements for your retirement nest egg (in Dutch: appeltje voor de dorst)? Under this heading, Netspar organized a successful public event for Tilburg University staff on Thursday, January 25, in cooperation with ABP, the Dutch pension fund for employees in the government and education sectors, and Nibud (National Institute for Family Finance Information). In a packed Auditorium, the speakers provided…

“Full personalisation is not needed for a close to optimal investment policy” Under new Dutch pension law, pension funds and insurance companies are required to elicit the risk preferences and risk capacities of individual participants and to adjust (collective) investment strategies accordingly. A considerable amount of recent research has studied how the risk preferences and risk capacities of participants can be measured. We go…

The Foundation Board has appointed Leon van Riet to the Supervisory Board of the Netspar Foundation. He is CEO Netherlands Life & Pensions at NN Group and a member of the board of NN Group. Corien Wortmann, chair of the Supervisory Board, commented: “we are pleased with Leon’s arrival. He has a long track record in the field of insurance and pensions and we…