The Association of British Insurers (ABI) brought together international pensions experts for a seminar designed to bring lessons from abroad to the UK pensions situation.

The seminar, entitled UK Pension Reform: Lessons from Abroad? considered the pensions systems in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the USA and look at how those systems might help Britain to close the savings gap.

The ABI also published a report at the seminar carrying the same title and concluding that, whilst no single country has a system that could be copied entirely in the context of the UK, each one offers important lessons for the UK pensions situation.

“There are useful lessons to be learned for us in Britain as we contemplate reform of our own pensions system,” said Stephen Sklaroff, deputy director general of the ABI, as he opened the seminar.

“No country can afford to ignore potentially useful ideas, wherever they may come from.”

Some of the most important lessons contained in the report and outlined at the seminar include harnessing human psychology to make voluntarism work, and placing a sound state pension system at the core of any effective pension regime.

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