‘Deep behavioural insight’ into UK pension savers is crucial to driving better engagement at scale, according to Legal & General (L&G) head of behavioural finance, Jenny Hazan.

Speaking at the Pensions UK annual conference, Hazan acknowledged that “most people aren’t engaged with pensions”, stressing that the issue goes beyond perceptions of complexity.

“It’s not that they just see them as complex - for most people, they see these decisions as intimidating,” she said.

“We’re asking them to make increasingly complex decisions with low financial confidence, understanding, and shifting regulation.”

Hazan cited research from the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) showing that only one in three UK adults had checked their pension in the past year, and just 5 per cent of these made any changes as a result.

“One in five people ended up later regretting these decisions as they felt they rushed the choice or didn’t fully understand it,” she added.

To address this, Hazan argued that large-scale change depends on two critical factors.

“The first is deep behavioural insight - understanding and anticipating what people’s needs are.

The second is smart tech to underpin it, so we can adapt based on the real behaviour in those journeys.”

Indeed, the introduction of targeted support and pensions dashboards is both expected to play a key role in tackling this challenge, with both measures due to be rolled out over the coming year.

L&G director of retail retirement, Jayesh Patel, highlighted the potential impact of such initiatives, noting that “with prompts, nudges, and action-focused guidance journeys, individuals take better steps to bridge income gaps and achieve improved retirement outcomes”.

Patel added that it was “great” that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was building a targeted support framework, suggesting it would offer a much-needed “bridge” between regulated advice and free guidance.

The FCA and the Treasury’s joint consultation on targeted support, published earlier this year, proposed a new framework allowing firms to provide personalised, outcome-focused support without crossing into full financial advice.

The framework aims to help address the UK’s persistent ‘advice gap’ and encourage savers to take meaningful action on their pensions.

Industry reaction to the proposals has been broadly positive, with many welcoming the potential to offer practical, contextualised help to members.

However, concerns have also been raised around the need for appropriate safeguards, consistency across providers, and ensuring the framework complements rather than replaces the pensions dashboard initiative.

Hazan concluded: “If we can understand how people really behave, and design our communications and technology around that, we can help more people make confident, informed decisions about their future. That’s how we drive engagement that actually lasts.”

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