Imagine a 45-year-old employee in Amsterdam who has just received a letter from HR explaining that her pension scheme is changing under the Dutch Future Pensions Act — the Wet toekomst pensioenen, or Wtp. The letter is long, the numbers look unfamiliar, and no one has explained what any of it means for her retirement.
For financial planning technology firm Kidbrooke, this is not merely a communications misstep — it is a structural problem that PPIs can no longer afford to ignore.
For decades, the Dutch supplementary pension system operated on a simple premise: a defined benefit (DB), built up collectively and administered at a distance. Employers passed on the basics and left the detail to the fund.
Under the Wtp, Kidbrooke argues, that model no longer holds. As a.s.r. vermogensbeheer’s investment head has observed, pension capital is now closer to participants than ever before, meaning communication must play a far more substantial role. Investment risk has shifted to the individual, outcomes are no longer guaranteed, and participants must now understand probability ranges, contribution levels and the personal impact of their choices. The Verbond van Verzekeraars has made this explicit: insurers and PPIs must actively help participants make suitable decisions — and that starts with personal, tailored communication.
The regulatory stakes are also rising. In its 2025 supervision priorities, the AFM identified pension communication as an area of intensified focus, setting out four principles: plain language and concrete explanations; balanced disclosure of risks; digital tools that genuinely support decision-making; and timely, personalised information about how the transition affects benefits.
After reviewing transition statements from early movers, the regulator warned that scenario figures presented without personal context risk leaving participants with unrealistic retirement expectations. Kidbrooke is clear on what this means: communication quality is now a supervisory matter, not merely a competitive one, and PPIs that fall short face regulatory scrutiny and the potential loss of employer mandates.
On paper, the responsibility is shared between PPIs and employers. But Kidbrooke argues employers are poorly placed to carry the real weight of it. HR teams are not pension specialists, communication quality varies widely across organisations, and employers have little incentive to go beyond the minimum. When a participant ends up confused by their outcome, it is the PPI’s reputation that suffers. A.s.r. vermogensbeheer’s own research found that insufficient context in formal communications created confusion even among participants who checked their pension position regularly — reinforcing Kidbrooke’s view that PPI communications must carry more explanation, not less.
The tools to address this already exist. Digital simulation and forecasting platforms can be embedded directly into PPI-owned portals, allowing participants to view realistic outcome ranges, adjust contributions and model different retirement dates — giving them genuine understanding rather than a static figure.
Centraal Beheer PPI has already framed this kind of transparency as a competitive advantage in attracting employer clients. With the January 2028 transition deadline approaching and the AFM’s supervisory focus firmly on communication quality, Kidbrooke’s message to the industry is direct: participant understanding must be owned by PPIs, built into their platforms, and treated as a core product feature — not delegated to employers or left to chance.
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