The government may give out the guidance to help pensioners make more informed decisions about their finance (Picture: PA)

The government could issue OAPs guidance on how long they are expected to live so they can manage their finances more wisely.

Pensions minister Steve Webb warned people often underestimate how long they might live and therefore can be left without enough savings.

The new information, which could be rolled out in April next year, would be based on factors such as gender, socio-economic background and health records will help people make more informed decisions.

Steve Webb, minister of state for pensions, explained to the BBC that most people’s pension planning is inadequate.


‘We might think perhaps about how long our grandparents lived, and of course in the generation since then people are living a lot longer,’ he said.



‘Based on your gender, based on your age, perhaps asking one or two basic questions like whether you’ve smoked or not you can tell somebody that they might, on average, live for another 20 years or so.’

But experts have warned that these estimates would have to be regularly reviewed so as not to mislead pensioners.

‘Unless you’ve got some process where you update the figure it becomes a bit meaningless,’ explained independent pensions expert Ros Altmann.

‘By the time five or 10 years have gone by, things can change by a big amount for lots of people.’