Retirement is a stage of life longer, different and full of opportunity than it was up to some time ago. If well organized can be used for travel, study, engage in voluntary work, work.

But given that we will live longer, there is the possibility of being “discovered”: the country and the public security system can not support the progressive aging of the population and the percentage of “guaranteed pension” will be very small compared to the expectations and hopes.

So a few years no longer only for retirement, but the so-called three pillars of security, where:

- The first is the public pension and mandatory, aimed at providing a basic protection;

- The second consists of the pension funds, which are designed to give workers a collective complementary protection to ensure a higher level of security coverage;

- The third is aimed at protecting individual integrative, represented mainly by life insurance and mutual funds.

The public pension system and can then decide to support the pension schemes, and through the voluntary and collective supplementary pension schemes to offer the possibility of forming an additional pension.

Join the social security is not an obligation but it is useful to supplement the basic pension.

The program of social security can be achieved by choosing a different way: by joining a pension fund or closed negotiations, choosing a fund open, or entering into or Pip Fip.

These two acronyms indicate the same thing: the first, Pip, stands for individual retirement plans, the second Fip, stands for individual retirement funds.

In practice this is that welfare policies, following the regular payment of premiums, guarantee a certain income to full retirement.

It is also true that in recent years, the welfare policies have become much more attractive from a tax point of view compared to traditional life policies.

A surge in sales but does not indicate the actual cost of the product at this stage of transition. Maroni Decree of 2005 gave effect to the reform of pensions. The decree will increase affordability for those who decide to stick to complementary pension schemes.

One of the great novelty is the possibility for the worker to decide to allocate its treatment termination (TFR) to a choice between a pension fund category, a fund open, a fund individual (Pip).

Pip I have life insurance and one of the alternatives of retirement provision. The employee can decide independently on the amount of annual pay, which can also be a fixed figure.

At the end of the work and the full retirement each employee will have accumulated a capital sum will be converted into an annuity (pension) paid monthly and calculated on the basis of the premium paid on the performance that it has obtained.

Annual contributions, in fact, that the employee pays the Pip are set aside and invested in different ways, depending on the type of Pip. There are kind of Pip Pip revalued and linked unit.

The former can be defined in traditional insurance policies, why follow the rules of classical investment life insurance products: the payment of underwriters is all gathered together in a fund managed separately from the assets of the insurance company (and why we speak of management).

Every year the insured is a recognized part of the returns on those investments with the money management separately. This type of policy achievements: the gain realized in a year is put aside and not be affected by any losses in the coming years.

Pip the unit-linked policies are contained in financial statements. The money from policyholders is invested in mutual funds whose performance is linked to the performance of the payments.

There is no guaranteed minimum return and there is no consolidation of the aged. Translated it means that you can risk losing a considerable part of the money paid in premiums. That said and considering the main purpose of Pip (the construction of a pension) seems least risky contact unit-linked products.

To financial risk should devote a part of their savings, rather than to build a pension in old age.

Focusing only on policies revalued, or the more advisable to build a pension, it emerged as a common: they are very expensive and affect the premiums paid on a number of costs that make the products really just consultants.

There are short, objective disadvantages such as high costs and often are not always properly identified.

An example is the loading on the annual premium, which can vary from a minimum of 2% to a maximum of 6% on each premium paid. But not enough. The contributions paid by employees are invested in separate managements.

About these products lies a management cost of between 1% and 3% of the results.

In short, no one can really say that products are convenient, especially if one considers that, in most cases, the high cost that the saver has to bear are not repaid by the returns on separate managements.

In recent years, for example, yields applied to the premiums did not exceed 4.4% per year. A normal BTP 30 year’s maturity with a yield grosses best, 4.57%.

An employee may, alternatively, choose to join the fund closed category just for minimum required by statute and, later, decide to increase the return on investment by adhering to a pension fund board open.

The funds seem to have opened more than the returns of mutual funds and may be an advantageous choice for the self-employed.