Hardly anyone is covered by guaranteed pension today. So, plan for it How will you meet your living expenses after retirement? Ask this question of different people and you are likely to get answers ranging from the vague ('My children will support me!') to the openly dismissive ('Oh, I plan to work all my life'). Surveys by financial firms show that Indians don’t give retirement savings priority, busy as they are saving up for their children’s higher education or wedding expenses. But this can be foolhardy for many reasons. No cover To start with, an overwhelming proportion of employees (even in the organised sector) today are not covered by any guaranteed pension scheme. It wasn’t like this a few years ago. Then, the Government and the public sector were the employers of choice and offered guaranteed pension benefits to all their employees. But the Government has stopped this practise since 2004 and moved its employees to the market-linked NaNational