Most People Ill-Prepared For Retirement

by Chan Shek Jan
newsdesk@thesundaily.com

KUALA LUMPUR: Retirement is an impending stage in life but most Malaysians are not aware of the amount of money they would need for their retirement and might be ill-prepared for it, a survey report revealed yesterday.

The Prudential Retire-Meter 2007 found that 79% of the 1,038 respondents polled said their health and well-being were the most important considerations during retirement. About 69% wanted to remain active and 51% planned to travel.

Despite these expectations, the survey found that more than 80% of the respondents were either indifferent or not worried if they would even have enough money to live throughout their retirement years.

Only 34% were consciously saving regularly for retirement and 60% had no clue how much exactly they would need for their sunset years.

About 60% of them said they would just save as much as they could and “hope” that they would have sufficient funds to cover their retirement needs.

“The Prudential Retire-Meter 2007 shows Malaysians clearly know what they want to do when they retire, but the majority are not actively planning their retirement,” Prudential Assurance Malaysia CEO Tan Kar Hor said at a press conference here yesterday.

The survey found that the lack of awareness was partly due to the reluctance of most Malaysians to discuss their savings or retirement plans with financial experts.

Only 11% were comfortable speaking to personal financial planners about their retirement needs, while 18% and 21% had no problems discussing them with insurance agents and bank representatives respectively.

Malaysians were also found to be conservative when it came to the types of investment tools they would use for retirement.

About 77% were relying heavily on low-yielding bank savings or fixed deposit accounts to accumulate wealth for their future retirement.
Only 35% admitted they were confident their EPF and personal savings would be enough for retirement.

Commissioned by Prudential Assurance Malaysia, the Retire-Meter survey was conducted by Synovate Malaysia and covered the Klang Valley, Penang, Ipoh, Johor Baru, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

The respondents were Malaysians aged 28 and above with a monthly household income of RM3,000 or higher.

Retirees were also among those polled and only 42% said they were confident that they had enough to cover all their retirement needs for the rest of their lives.