Supporting pension participants: Three lessons learned from the medical domain for better pension decisions

“Research on how patients make medical decisions can simplify and improve pension decisions”

Pension participants have to make complex decisions based on information they struggle to understand: multiple alternatives that have positive and negative outcomes with differing likelihoods and that involve different values. Patients often face similarly complex treatment decisions. Much research has been done into how patients can best be supported in that process, resulting in decision-making tools. This paper explores how evidence from the medical domain could be used to make it easier for pension participants to take appropriate decisions.

Key Takeaways for the Industry

• More research is needed into which considerations, values and information are important for pension decisions.
• This information can be incorporated into future pension decision tools.
• The effectiveness of various value clarification methods, visual aids and communication aspects (such as verbal quantifiers) in these tools should be assessed.