Gosling's Grouse: Protecting investors

GOSLING'S GROUSE

I can tell you the next industry mis-selling scandal before it has even started - it is annuity pots. You know I am right.

If you have ever wasted an hour or two reading the personal finance sections of the nationals and seen the diatribes, you will be able to envisage annuities being in there next. There is a weary predictability about the whole thing. We had a group of MPs and do-gooders worrying about whether ‘they’ (that is ordinary people/consumers/investors/you or I) could be trusted with our annuity pots. Of course, if you are in a gilt-edged, inflation-linked pension arrangement, as many do-gooders are, then it is easy to be patronising and condescending about ‘them’. I am not denying there are mi...