Speaking ahead of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) 2014 'Women’s Super Summit' in Melbourne, Mr Knox said the focus needs to be shifted to retirement income when thinking about superannuation.
“Many people living beyond 90 rely on the age pension, but as super gets bigger and people earn it for longer more people will be living off super in their retirement years. What I’m suggesting is that what we need is some method of pooling longevity risk in the retirement years,” he said.
Mr Knox said this pooling would work in a similar way to insurance.
“We all pool insurance. Take our car insurance or house insurance, for instance: those who have accidents or whose house burns down, they get the money from the pool,” he said.
“What I’m suggesting in this case is that we should be sharing some of that longevity risk in retirement and to do that, particularly if we do that on a unisex basis, then women will win, because on average women live longer than men.”
Mr Knox said we also need to re-examine some of the regulations that apply to retirement income products, in order to create more flexibility.
“The regulations can be quite restrictive regarding what pensions or annuities are permitted and that’s why they’re not being developed,” he said.
The AIST symposium will also explore policy ideas and issues such as low income super superannuation, superannuation payments on parental leave and using a system of ‘care credits’ to recognise the work women perform outside the paid workforce.
AIST Women in Super president Cate Wood said the main focus of the summit is to “sharpen the focus on existing policies but also look at fresh ideas that may help improve women’s superannuation savings”.
