Transparenz von privaten Riester- und Basisrentenprodukten

Transparency of private "Riester" and "basic" pension products

An obvious problem for the comparison of private pension products is the long investment horizon which usually extends over several decades. Return forecasts for such a long time horizon are generally unreliable. Further substantial problems in the assessment of private pension products are different cost calculations and risk-return profiles, particularly with respect to guarantees for minimum returns, minimum durations of guaranteed annuity, payback of contributions in case of death during the payment period, etc. A number of different information duties already exist for all product categories that are currently subsidized by the government. However, these regulations are usually not harmonized. Therefore, current product offerings often contain a lot of different information on numerous pages, leading to an information overflow on the side of pension savers. This is one reason why private old-age pension products are often assessed as costly and not transparent. In this study recommendations for improving the transparency of private pension products are developed, based on desktop research as well as extensive surveys in the financial industry and workshops with suppliers and consumers.

English Short Summary (Download as PDF-File, 66 KB)
German Study (Download as PDF-File, 5.85 MB)

Westerheide, Peter, Michael Feigl, Lena Jaroszek, Johannes Leinert and Achim Tiffe (2010), Transparenz von privaten Riester- und Basisrentenprodukten, Mannheim