Opinion
Do you know whether your super fund is ready for your retirement?
Bec Wilson
Money contributorMost Australians have no idea whether their super fund is ready to help them with their retirement. Not ready in the sense of having made decent returns so far, but ready for the actual job it will need to do before, and after, the day your work income stops.
And why would you? The system doesn’t make it easy to find out. The government’s performance test will tell you if your default MySuper fund passed or failed on investment returns and fees, but it is a narrow, product-focused measure (that most people don’t understand anyway) and it ignores a fund’s broader services and capability. It is like judging a car by petrol consumption and top speed, with no idea whether the brakes work, the seatbelt will hold, or even where it plans to drive.
There are strategies for choosing the right nest egg. Credit: Karl Hilzinger
Last week, the Treasury Department finally released a consultation paper on a new retirement reporting framework for the super industry. It promises greater transparency on the products and services funds offer in retirement and how well they deliver — but the data won’t be public until 2028 (and we’ll likely still have to dig to find the detail). By then, the biggest wave of baby boomers will have already crossed into retirement.
At the same time, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority deputy chair Margaret Cole told the Conexus retirement industry conference that while super funds are making progress under the retirement income covenant – a three-year push to improve services for retirees – it’s patchy, and not a single one rated their own performance as “excellent” in the latest survey for APRA and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Some funds are acting on the call for change, others remain stuck in accumulation-phase thinking. The gap between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is still wide, and if we wait until 2028 to shine a light on it, millions of Australians could find out too late that their fund wasn’t ready when they needed it most.
That means there is still no clear measure of whether you can get the right advice when you need it, whether your investment options are designed for the pension phase, whether the planning tools are easy for you to use, or whether even the basics – such as your pension payments – will be done well and on time.
It is like judging a car by petrol consumption and top speed, with no idea whether the brakes work, the seatbelt will hold, or even where it plans to drive.
This gap matters. You can spend 40 years building your super balance, but if your fund is not ready for the retirement phase, you could end up facing complex decisions about income streams, drawdowns and the age pension with little tailored help and a lot of frustration.
That is why I have decided to do something about it, and it needs your help to work. I have been working with Chant West, one of the leading super fund research and ratings businesses, to create a set of criteria you can use to judge whether your fund is good enough for you as you approach retirement.
We are now making those criteria public here, ahead of announcing who has been awarded “the epic retirement tick” on October 2. Four weeks ago, we sent the criteria to the funds and invited them to submit their own performance for assessment. And we’re pleased to see funds responses flowing in for evaluation.
Once a year, we will publish a report naming the funds that meet the benchmark in at least 12 of our 18 criteria. These are the standards that together give a complete picture of whether a fund is ready to support you in your prime and throughout your retirement. Those funds can choose to display the epic retirement tick, showing they have been independently assessed and are ready to help you make the most of life after work. Then you can decide if what they’re doing is good enough.
Peer pressure matters in super, but this is not about naming and shaming. We will only award the tick to funds that meet the benchmark through fair assessment. Different funds serve different types of members, so the way they meet the criteria will vary.
What matters is that they can show real progress towards helping you have an epic retirement. When members can see which funds have stepped up, it encourages others to lift their game or risk losing customers to those that do. If your fund does not have a tick, you can decide how long to wait for them to catch up, or ask them directly if they think their retirees are important. We will also review funds that make quick progress before another year rolls around.
So what are the criteria?
It starts with your investments. A good retirement fund should have at least one pension-phase investment option designed to support income drawdown, and its main investment options, like balance and growth, should have delivered above-median long-term returns. It should also be cost-effective, with competitive administration fees, whether you have $100,000 or $1 million in your account.
Next come the products. A strong fund will give you the option of a lifetime income product if it suits you, an income for life, and explain how it works alongside the age pension asset test.
Drawdown guidance is another essential. Your fund should help you work out how much you can take out each year without running out too soon, using clear and realistic calculations that show the long-term impact of your choices. You should also have the flexibility to draw your pension payments from different investment options.
Then there is advice. Retirement-ready funds make it easy to get intra-fund advice for little or no fee, offer simple retirement planning advice for both you and your partner, and give you a pathway to comprehensive advisers who can help with more complex needs such as estate planning or investments.
Tools matter too. As you get closer to retirement, you should have access to calculators that model your income, drawdown patterns and budgets, plus digital advice to help you choose the right investments and products.
Education and engagement cannot be an afterthought. The best funds send personalised projections and prompts so you know if you are on track and what actions might improve your outcome. They run retirement seminars and webinars to help you prepare, and provide structured online education programs that guide you step by step.
And finally, service. We look at how quickly a fund can set up your pension account, process changes or ad hoc payments, whether it uses secure same-day payment systems like Osko, and how strong its customer service is, from call wait times to satisfaction scores. We also look for funds that offer a retirement bonus or have a track record of top-quartile long-term returns.
Combine all 18 measures and you get a clear picture of whether a fund is built for the retirement stage or still stuck in accumulation-mode thinking.
I can’t wait to share the results with you.
You deserve to know if your fund is genuinely ready to help you turn your savings into a secure, sustainable income for life. Without that clarity, too many people will find out too late that their fund was only fit for the first half of the journey. And the worst time to discover that is when the income stops.
Bec Wilson is author of the bestseller How to Have an Epic Retirement and the newly released Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. She writes a weekly newsletter at epicretirement.net and hosts the Prime Time podcast.
- Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making financial decisions.
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