State Pension Plan

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 4 May 1938, Page 15

State Pension Plan

Sir, —Your correspondent "Broader View” evidently considers investing 4/6 per week in. the Government scheme, safer and more profitable for a married man than buying an annuity producing £92/10/-, for the same sum.

Possibly he does not know that 1/in the pound from salaries and wages will only produce about one-third of the sum required to finance the Government scheme, with every possibility of the amount rising as time goes on, until eventually the whole thing collapses under its own weight. Where then would be the so called security?

Although a married man with nothing but my earnings, I agree with

•'Number One" that the annuity is the safer and better investment despite "Broader View's" threat of a Forbes-Coates-Hamilton "slave camp," as money paid to an insurance company is not lost if payments cannot bo met for a year or two, and even if no further payments can be made a policy, once established, has a certain cash value; whereas if the Government's ill-considered and top-heavy scheme fails, we can definitely say good-bye to anything we have paid in. There are many eventualities besides Hitler taking charge which could wreck the Government's proposed scheme, but I am inclined to doubt whether even this would make an insurance contract valueless.—Yours, etc., NUMBER TWO.