Aviva Recons I will live to be 123

As fans of the sub-prime mortgage crisis will tell you no financial instrument is more opaque than the pension fund.  

Having been an employee of 8 different companies over 25 years I am now the owner of 4 pension plans from differing providers who supply me with a small wodge of incomprehensible paperwork every year.  How these pensions are invested I don't understand ...but they are carefully administered by people I've never heard of who write occasionally to ask if they can change my investments from a dodgy portfolio that I don't understand to an even more slightly strange one as they are concerned that my hard earned is not earning hard enough at the moment.

Such financial statements are often masterpieces of hyperbole and opacity but I was particuarly impressed the other day to recieve one from Aviva that seemed to suggest that I will live to be 123 - outliving Jeanne Calment the oldest person known to have lived (verifiably) who only managed a measly 122 years old.

Yes, ... indeed... it is so...

...for this letter from Aviva proudly informs me that...

... when I retire I will have £29000 to live on in today's prices and that this is enough to give me a pension of £575 a year (or £1.58 a day) .  Immediately I back calculated that at a rate of expenditure of £575 a year £29000 would last for just over 55 years.  Therefore as I intend to retire at 68 they must be expecting me to live to at least 123 years...?

Eat that Janet Calment!