The restart problem: why pension saving interruptions rarely bounce back

When contributions pause, many clients do not return to where they were

Stopping saving is common. Restarting is the hard part. If we help clients protect their income, we make the restart far more realistic.  

Most advisers recognise that clients may pause pension contributions during periods of pressure. What is less widely acknowledged is how sticky that pause can be.  

Scottish Widows’ latest Retirement Report shows that around a quarter of people have stopped saving or reduced what they save for retirement because of short‑term financial pressures.¹ That alone is not the headline. The headline is what happens next.  

Only a quarter of those who reduced or stopped saving now save at least as much as they did before.¹ Many restart at a lower level. Many do not restart at all. This is the restart problem, and it quietly drives poorer retirement outcomes.

The cost is not the missed contributions. It is the lost momentum

When saving stops, clients do not just miss a month. They miss compounding. They miss habit. They miss the reassurance of feeling ‘on track.’ For some, the break becomes the new normal.  

In practice, it often looks like this: contributions pause to relieve the month‑to‑month squeeze. Then another priority takes its place. A restart is intended, but it keeps slipping to ‘later.’ Over time, ‘later’ becomes ‘never.’

Why vulnerability makes restart risk worse

The Retirement Report also shows a more troubling pattern for vulnerable consumers. They are more likely to have stopped or reduced saving, and less likely to return to the same level once they have stopped. Only around one in five vulnerable consumers who stopped saving return to saving the same amount.¹ 

That is not disengagement. It is arithmetic. When a household has little financial resilience, there are fewer places to absorb a shock.  

Scottish Widows research reinforces that reality: 22% of people do not have enough savings to cope with a financial emergency. When there is no buffer, the pension is often where the pressure is released.² 

This is where protection belongs in a retirement conversation. Not as a separate ‘protection review,’ but as a way of keeping the plan funded when life interrupts earnings. 

A practical reframe: from ‘protection’ to ‘keeping your plan funded.’

If you want a simple way to introduce this without sounding salesy, focus on the mechanics:  

• When income becomes uncertain, people prioritise the month ahead over the decade ahead
• When savings are low, they have fewer alternatives
• When contributions stop, most do not return to where they were.

So, the question becomes: how do we help clients avoid the all‑or‑nothing trade‑off?  

Often, the most responsible answer is to build an income resilience layer into the plan. That might mean ensuring the client has support if illness or injury prevents them working or helping them create breathing space, so they do not need to dismantle long‑term saving when life hits.  

In our next article, I explore why late‑career disruption is different, and how to protect retirement choices when there is less runway.

Continue the series:

Read part 1: The plan built on assumptions

Read part 3: Later career shocks hit harder

Sources:

¹ Scottish Widows Retirement Report, 2026 

² Scottish Widows research, 2025