South Africa’s retirement advice gap is no longer only about whether fund members can access help. It is increasingly about whether that help comes early enough, is tailored to members’ circumstances, and reaches them when key financial decisions are made. This is one of the themes to emerge from the Sanlam Benchmark 2026 Insights Report.
The Benchmark Survey’s findings show that 35% of respondents believe retirement education should begin from age 35, yet 26% expect to seek professional retirement advice less than five years before retirement. Pensioners who participated in the research reported consulting a financial adviser, on average, just one year and eight months before retiring.
The report points to a support landscape in which education, retirement benefit counselling, financial advice, employer communication, and digital information sources all exist, but often do not operate as a coherent pathway across a fund member’s working life and retirement.
A recurring theme across the report’s advice-related chapters is that improving retirement outcomes requires more than encouraging higher savings. It also requires relevant guidance before important decisions become difficult, or impossible, to reverse.
Respondents value retirement education
One of the report’s encouraging findings is that retirement education is not an obscure or peripheral issue for many respondents.
Almost nine in 10 respondents – 88% – said regular educational information is either quite or very important. In addition, 62% said their employer or retirement fund provides access to retirement benefit counselling, and 60% of those with access have used or contacted the service. The report also finds that 85% of respondents would be willing to share financial information with a provider if it meant receiving guidance.
These figures suggest that retirement funds and employers have made progress in improving access to information. The difficulty lies in converting education and information into timely, personalised decisions.
Although respondents indicate that retirement education should begin earlier, many still postpone seeking personalised financial advice until late in their working lives. Pensioners looking back on their own experience reported that serious retirement planning typically began only three years and four months before retirement, while professional financial advice was sought only one year and eight months before retirement.
By that stage, the scope for course correction is much narrower. Decisions about contribution levels, preservation after changing jobs, investment choices, debt management, and retirement-income structures are usually made years, if not decades, before retirement.
The uncertainty is visible in the survey findings. Only 51% of respondents said they believe they are on track to have enough capital to last for the rest of their lives in retirement, while 26% said they are not on track, and 23% were unsure. Similarly, 55% believed they would be able to maintain their current standard of living in retirement. Among members aged 55 and older, confidence was lower: only 39% believed they were on track.
The report does not suggest that delayed advice is caused by a single factor. Instead, it points to competing priorities, debt, job changes, affordability pressures, fragmented savings, product complexity, and the tendency of some members to underestimate longevity, or the scale of savings required, while underestimating healthcare costs in retirement.
Different stages, different advice
Kanyisa Mkhize, the chief executive of Sanlam Corporate, writes in the foreword: “Confidence is not generational. It evolves through life.” Different stages bring different priorities and different support needs.
That idea is reflected throughout the report.
For younger members, the emphasis is on establishing sound savings habits early. Meghna Batohi and Adarsh Sundarparsad, actuarial specialists at Sanlam Corporate: Investments, illustrate this through the example of Amanda, a Gen Z member who starts work on a salary of R300 000 a year, with her salary assumed to increase roughly in line with inflation. If Amanda contributes 6% of salary every month for six years, her retirement fund value by April 2026 would be about R200 132. At a 9% monthly contribution rate, the value would be about R300 198; at 12%, about R400 264; and at 15%, about R500 330.
The point of the example is not that every young member can afford higher contributions. The authors acknowledge that rent, study debt, car expenses, and other living costs make high contribution rates difficult. Rather, the example shows how early contribution decisions can materially affect retirement outcomes.
The same section records that 43% of Gen Z respondents have not made use of a retirement benefit counsellor. It also notes that younger members may make investment decisions based on their own biases, particularly during market volatility. In the report’s example, a member who remained invested through market downturns ended with a retirement fund value 15% higher than a member who repeatedly switched to the money market after downturns.
The Gen Z findings also show that 24% of respondents in this cohort do not believe they are on track for retirement, while 75% would try to increase their retirement contributions if they were not on track. Therefore, the report presents Gen Z not as disengaged, but as a cohort that may need earlier support with contribution decisions, market behaviour, and realistic trade-offs.
For Millennials, the challenge is often less about disengagement than complexity.
Melissa Reddy, a senior investment specialist at Sanlam Corporate: Investments, writes that 72% of Millennials know the value of their retirement savings, 67% know how their savings are invested, 60% believe they are on track to meet their retirement needs, and 58% believe they will be able to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
At the same time, Millennials face a more fragmented retirement journey, including job changes and savings spread across multiple providers and products. The report says this can make it difficult for even engaged members to form a consolidated view of their retirement position.
Two-pot behaviour provides evidence of the short-term financial pressures facing this cohort. The report says 43% of Millennials have accessed their savings component at least once. Withdrawals were predominantly used for essential living costs, family responsibilities, and debt servicing. This suggests that retirement savings are sometimes functioning as a short-term financial buffer where household resilience is insufficient.
For Gen X respondents, attention shifts from establishing savings habits to assessing whether enough has already been accumulated. The report says only 41% of Gen X respondents believe they are on track to accumulate sufficient retirement capital, and 48% believe they will be able to maintain their current standard of living in retirement. Gen X respondents are also described as facing the “sandwich squeeze” of supporting children and ageing parents while dealing with debt and approaching retirement.
The same cohort has made use of two-pot access, although less than younger cohorts: 32% have accessed the savings component once and 18% more than once. Withdrawals were mainly used for debt servicing, family support, and household or living expenses. These findings highlight the financial pressures advisers, funds, and employers may need to consider when engaging members who are approaching retirement.
Retirement itself creates a different set of advice needs. Pensioners interviewed for the study described ongoing concerns about inflation, healthcare costs, budgeting, and making retirement income last. Only 40% of pensioners believed their savings would last for the rest of their lives, 77% had made financial adjustments after retirement, and 60% were supplementing their income.
Information has limits
The report distinguishes between retirement benefit counselling and financial advice.
Karishma Singh, practice manager and senior benefit consultant, and Janine Jacobs, the head of best practice and principal benefit consultant at Simeka Consultants and Actuaries, note that retirement benefit counselling, introduced under the default regulations to the Pension Funds Act, is intended to provide factual information rather than personalised recommendations. It can explain available options, but it does not advise members on which option best suits their circumstances.
Nomawetu Msutwana, branch head: benefit consulting and principal benefit consultant at Simeka Consultants and Actuaries, argues that institutional education provides an essential foundation because it gives members a baseline level of support. But members do not retire under identical circumstances. Their debts, dependants, health needs, tax positions, preservation histories, risk appetites, and emotional responses to money differ.
Retirement benefit counselling can explain the fund, the rules, the default options, and the consequences of certain decisions. Personalised financial advice can recommend a course of action after taking account of the member’s household circumstances, tax position, debt, dependants, health needs, and retirement goals. The two are not competing services; they are different layers of support.
The broader information environment is also dispersed. When asked where they usually obtain information about financial products, 52% of respondents mentioned their own financial adviser, broker, or benefit counsellor; 39% used online searches, Google, YouTube, or artificial intelligence tools; 36% consulted provider websites; and 33% turned to their employer, human resources department, or people linked to work benefits.
This mix of sources creates both opportunity and risk. Respondents are not passive, but they may be assembling guidance from channels that are not aligned with one another. Employers also remain a major gateway into retirement guidance, particularly at joining, resignation, retrenchment, two-pot withdrawal, and retirement decision points.
The digital theme cuts across age groups. The report notes that retirees are active digital users, with 91% using online banking, challenging the assumption that digital engagement is only a younger-member issue.
The system still intervenes too late
Perhaps the strongest criticism in the advice-related sections of the report is not that support is unavailable, but that it is too often concentrated around administrative events rather than the decisions that shape retirement outcomes.
Singh and Jacobs write that 80% of retirement benefit counselling in standalone funds and 86% in umbrella funds takes place at retirement. Yet retirement is only the final stage of a process shaped by decades of earlier decisions.
The same timing problem appears when members leave employment. At job exit, 40% received little more than withdrawal forms from HR. Only 21% were offered access to a retirement benefit counsellor, and 21% were offered access to a financial adviser.
That matters because preservation decisions at resignation can have a significant effect on eventual retirement adequacy. A member who cashes out retirement savings when changing jobs may understand the long-term cost in principle, but still act under the pressure of debt, unemployment, family obligations, or immediate cash-flow needs.
The two-pot system has made that tension more visible. The report says 84% of standalone funds and 80% of umbrella funds reported increased member engagement since two-pot was implemented. But engagement does not automatically mean improved retirement behaviour. Across life stages, 44% of Gen Z, 43% of Millennials, and 32% of Gen X had accessed their savings component, with withdrawals mainly linked to debt, living costs, and family support.
Denisha Subjee, corporate relationship executive at Graviton, argues that advice should not be treated as a point-in-time intervention. Instead, it should be embedded at key decision points: when members join a fund, change jobs, review contributions, face disability, resign or are retrenched, consider two-pot withdrawals, approach retirement, and manage income after retirement.
For advisers, the findings suggest that some of the most important opportunities to influence retirement outcomes may arise well before retirement itself – when members change jobs, review contributions, consider accessing their savings component, or reassess financial priorities after major life events.
Retirement-income decisions expose the advice gap
The advice gap becomes particularly visible when members convert accumulated savings into retirement income.
The report records a strong preference for certainty: 88% of respondents prefer a guaranteed income for life in retirement, and 69% prefer income certainty over flexibility and inheritance when framed as a trade-off. Yet uptake of trustee-endorsed annuity strategies remains low: only 31% of retirees in employer funds and 26% in umbrella funds take up these solutions at retirement.
At the same time, 48% of retirees choose to take their vested retirement savings as cash. The report also notes that cash lump sums taken at retirement are depleted within an average of 14.6 months, compared with an average of 30 months in earlier years.
This is not presented as evidence that retirees are reckless. Several sections of the report link retirement decisions to debt, household pressure, medical costs, and inadequate short-term resilience. But the findings do show why generic communication at retirement is unlikely to be enough. A member deciding whether to take cash, choose a living annuity, accept a guaranteed annuity, or use a hybrid strategy needs more than a product list.
The report also finds that about 80% of funds do not differentiate their annuity strategy for different member types. That means members with very different income levels, savings balances, health circumstances, and household responsibilities may be presented with similar default pathways.
From isolated interventions to a connected advice pathway
The report looks beyond the traditional distinction between education and advice.
Contributors point towards more integrated models in which retirement benefit counselling, financial advice, and digital tools reinforce one another rather than operating in parallel. Technology is presented not as a replacement for advisers, but as a way to extend engagement between major decision points through calculators, scenario modelling, dashboards, automated prompts, and personalised communication.
The direction of travel is not retail advice versus institutional advice. It is a blended approach. Institutional channels can provide scale, consistency, and access to fund members. Retail advice can personalise decisions around household income, debt, dependants, tax, health needs, and retirement goals. Digital tools can help to identify when members are off track and prompt earlier intervention.
The report also points to practical constraints, including cost, accessibility, and the perception that financial advice is not for ordinary members. This is why several contributors favour scalable, layered models in which digital education reaches many members, while personalised advice is directed at those who need deeper support.
The advice pathway also broadens the content of support. During accumulation, members may need help with budgeting, debt management, preserving benefits, understanding risk cover, completing beneficiary nominations, preparing wills, and reviewing contribution levels. In retirement and decumulation, the focus shifts to income sustainability, annuity and preservation choices, tax efficiency, estate planning, liquidity, longevity risk, and ongoing personal financial reviews.
Subjee proposes a practical “20-year retirement readiness plan”: start retirement education from about age 40 to 45, conduct a financial needs analysis every five years, increase contributions towards 27.5%, and aim to be debt-free one year before retirement.
That roadmap captures the broader lesson from the advice-focused sections of the Benchmark report: advice has its greatest value before options narrow. By the time a member is choosing an annuity, taking cash, or discovering that retirement income is insufficient, many of the most powerful decisions have already been made. The opportunity for funds, employers, and advisers is to reach those decisions earlier – while there is still time to change the outcome.
