We’ve all ignored good advice. Eat better. Exercise more. Start saving for retirement earlier.
Knowing what to do has rarely been the problem. Acting on it is.
Nomawetu Msutwana, branch head: benefit consulting and principal benefit consultant at Simeka Consultants and Actuaries, and Denisha Subjee, corporate relationship executive at Graviton, believe the retirement industry faces much the same challenge.
At the launch of the 2026 Sanlam Benchmark, they argued that South Africa’s long-running advice gap has been misunderstood. For years, the industry has focused on widening access to financial education and advice. They contend that access is no longer the biggest obstacle.
“The advice gap is not a gap in access,” Msutwana said. “The gap is in impact.”
The question is no longer whether members receive information. It is whether that information changes the decisions they make.
Communication versus changing behaviour
Retirement funds and employers have made considerable progress in expanding access to financial information.
About 68% of members now have access to scaled financial education. Engagement has increased following the implementation of the two-pot retirement system, and 72% know the current value of their retirement savings.
Members are also drawing financial information from more sources than ever before. More than half (52%) consult their own financial adviser or broker, while many also use provider websites, employers, online searches, YouTube, artificial intelligence, and financial webinars.
Better access, however, has not translated into better retirement outcomes.
The Benchmark found that 61% of members aged 55 and older are either off track for retirement or unsure whether they are on track. Fewer than half (44%) believe they will be able to maintain their standard of living after they retire.
One presentation slide captured the contradiction in a single sentence: “This is not disengagement – it is a failure of impact.”
“It is not about whether that communication went out,” Msutwana said. “It is about whether members acted on that communication.”
Instead of counting workshops, newsletters, and member engagements, the presenters argued that success should increasingly be measured by whether members increase retirement contributions, reduce debt, review their financial plans, and make better long-term financial decisions.
The biggest opportunity comes long before retirement
The presenters challenged the long-standing tendency to concentrate retirement planning during the final years before retirement, when members have relatively little opportunity to improve the outcome.
The Benchmark found that more respondents selected age 35 as the ideal time to begin retirement education than any other option. Almost one in four said support should begin as soon as they fall off track financially.
Msutwana and Subjee described the years between roughly 40 and 45 as a 15- to 20-year influence window – a period when relatively modest changes can have a significant effect on retirement outcomes.
During those years, members still have time to increase retirement contributions gradually, refine investment strategies and adjust financial habits before retirement comes into view.
They illustrated the point with a simple example. Saving an additional R1 000 a month from age 35 produces a substantially larger retirement outcome than waiting until age 45, even when the monthly contribution remains the same. Time, they argued, is one of the most valuable assets retirement savers have.
Retirement reviews should extend well beyond investment performance. Debt, retirement savings, investment strategy, insurance cover, healthcare needs, household budgets, and estate planning all deserve regular attention as members’ circumstances change.
Rethinking the advice model
Information alone rarely changes behaviour.
That is why Msutwana and Subjee argued that closing the advice gap requires changes in three areas: the advice model, member behaviour, and execution.
The current advice model often leaves members choosing between generic financial education that cannot address their individual circumstances and personalised advice that many cannot afford.
Members procrastinate, postpone difficult conversations, and make emotional decisions even when they understand the long-term consequences. The presenters argued that better defaults, such as automatic contribution escalations, together with behavioural nudges at key decision points, can help members to make better long-term choices.
Execution also requires better measurement. Rather than assuming advice is working, trustees should monitor indicators such as replacement-ratio progress, portfolio reviews, and counselling uptake to determine whether members are becoming more retirement ready.
Their prescription was simple: Rethink the model. Redesign behaviour. Reinforce execution.
What members should be doing
The presenters translated the 15- to 20-year influence window into a practical action plan.
Rather than waiting until retirement is imminent, members should gradually increase retirement contributions, review their finances regularly, reduce debt, monitor insurance and healthcare needs, and keep retirement plans aligned with changing circumstances.
Every review should become broader over time, covering debt, retirement savings, investment strategy, household budgets, insurance, healthcare, and estate planning rather than focusing on investments alone.
Members should also aim to enter retirement debt-free. Too many retirees, the presenters noted, spend the first years of retirement repaying debt instead of using their retirement income to support their lifestyle.
Advice should become a journey, not an event
Rather than treating retirement planning as a series of isolated reviews, the presenters proposed a structured advice journey that unfolds across every stage of a member’s financial life.
Advice should begin when a member joins a retirement fund, continue through career growth and major life events, support retirement planning well before retirement approaches, and remain available after retirement.
As members move through those stages, the advice itself should evolve.
Early conversations should focus on establishing an emergency fund, reducing expensive debt, securing life and disability cover, and building retirement savings. Later, the emphasis shifts towards preserving capital, managing retirement income, healthcare, estate planning, and long-term sustainability.
Institutional and retail advice are not competing models
Msutwana and Subjee argued that institutional and retail advice solve different problems.
“The point is… not that one model is better and the other is not,” Subjee said. “It is that members need a clear bridge from that institutional fund advice model to the retail advice product.”
Institutional advice provides the scale to reach every member with financial education, digital tools, and practical guidance throughout their working lives. Retail advice becomes most valuable when members need personalised recommendations on retirement income, tax, estate planning, and other complex financial decisions.
As Subjee put it: “Google can tell you what a living annuity is, but it cannot tell you if taking a two-pot withdrawal today will leave you short of cash at the age of 85.”
Without a clear connection between the two, she warned, members can become confused “at the moment where their decision making ultimately matters the most”.
Institutional advice gives the retirement system “scale and consistency, but it is not enough on its own to deliver impact”, she said. Instead, “the future… lies in connecting institutional guidance with personalised actionable advice”.
Their aim is to make meaningful advice available across the retirement system, reserving more intensive personal advice for members facing complex financial decisions rather than only those with significant wealth.
As one presentation slide summarised it, members want advice that is “earlier, simpler, more practical, and more personal”.
Designing better environments for advice
Msutwana emphasised that closing the advice gap does not mean trustees or employers should become financial advisers.
“Instead, design better environments for advice to work.”
She suggested several practical steps: linking advice panels to fund propositions, providing one-on-one onboarding when employees join a retirement fund, and supporting members from the first day of employment rather than waiting until retirement approaches.
The presenters also called for personalised retirement projections to become a standard feature of retirement funds, allowing members to see the likely consequences of maintaining their current contribution levels compared with taking corrective action.
One-on-one engagement is particularly important because, as Msutwana put it, “Members do not retire in groups; they retire as individuals.”
