Annuities often get a bad press, seen as insurance company profiteering at the expense of people’s hard-earned savings. In the UK, where the rules demand that people buy an annuity with their pension savings by age 75, there are increasing calls for change. Wealthy people in particular do not like handing over their pension pots to insurance companies and being unable to pass anything on to heirs except at penal tax rates.

In the US, where there is more flexibility, some are suggesting a move in the opposite direction, to compulsory annuitisation as part of a new government-guaranteed national pension scheme.