Could NS&I annuities defuse this time bomb? Like Lord Myners, the NAPF said workers with smaller pension pots would suffer the most. Some 80pc of retiring workers with so-called defined contribution company pensions have pots of less than £50,000 - and with auto-enrolment (which will see employees automatically enrolled into a company pension) around the corner hundreds of thousands will be in the same boat. Lord Myners' master plan is for the Government to get involved. People would buy their annuity from the Treasury's Debt Management Office (DMO), which sells gilts for the Government. The DMO would insure the risk and provide an annuity through National Savings & Investments, another government agency. Sounds a viable solution at first hand, although whether Lord Myners' plan will come to fruition is debatable. What is abundantly clear is that something needs to be done. The key today is to understand your options and to scour the market for the most suitable annuity. Annuities are not a one-size-fits-all product, yet many people simply take the one offered by their pension provider or employer when it comes to clocking off for the last time. All the evidence until now has suggested that many pension providers do the bare minimum when it comes to explaining that customers can go elsewhere for an annuity. Indeed, in many circumstances the wording used in the literature suggests that people would actually lose out if they applied to another annuity provider. Complex jargon is also a barrier. Of course, annuity providers protest otherwise and reckon that 70pc of people shop around for a better annuity deal, and they are working on getting the remainder to do so. It's not a view the NAPF shares. But there is also another danger sign - new rules on financial advice to come in following the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) will mean more people going to a bank, rather than paying upfront and getting independent advice from a financial adviser. With auto-enrolment, more and more people will be passive in their annuity choice and simply accept what is handed to them. As each year goes by, Britons are subconsciously being told it's your future, it's your retirement, and so it's your problem. The problem is that most people don't realise it yet. It means that increasing numbers of people in the years ahead are going to need expert financial advice more than ever, not sales patter from a junior bank clerk with five GCSEs to his name. Tick, tick, tick . . .