Release of our Defined Contribution Retirement Readiness Report

We are delighted to share with you our first Defined Contribution (DC) Retirement Readiness Report.

DC schemes are now the company pension plans of choice for most companies looking to help their employees secure income for their retirement. As the market leading provider of occupational Defined Contribution schemes in Ireland, we at Irish Life are well placed to provide an insight into how Defined Contribution schemes around Ireland are operating.

Having analysed the company DC schemes that we administer, covering almost 1,400 schemes and approximately 38,000 members, we examined the main factors affecting outcomes at retirement for members of DC schemes.

Key findings

  • The average contribution rate (including employer and employee contributions) for a DC member is 10.3% of salary.
  • This level of contributions will provide members with a replacement income of 17% of their salary in retirement, or 43% of salary when the state pension is also taken into account.
  • However, this replacement rate drops for those on higher salaries and our analysis shows that this higher-earning group are the most likely to be facing significant shortfalls at retirement.
  • Starting in a pension plan early, when coupled with a meaningful contribution, is important in order to build up an adequate pension fund at retirement.
  • Most DC schemes now offer a lifestyle strategy as their default investment choice and over 70% of DC members under the age of 40 are invested in lifestyle strategies.
  • Some clear differences between the genders emerge. The biggest difference between the genders is the average fund accumulated to date. See section 9 of the report for more.

 

We hope you find the results of our analysis interesting and informative in your role as an advisor, employer, trustee or pension scheme member. We are constantly striving to provide insights into the Irish pensions landscape to ultimately help pension scheme members achieve the retirement income they want. We would love to discuss any of the findings of our report with you so do not hesitate to contact your financial advisor or Irish Life Account Manager to request a meeting.