Workplace pensions have changed significantly over the past 20 years; in fact, pension savers seem to have been taken on a whistle-stop tour of pension policy, employer decisions, tax tinkering and market vagaries.
Not only has the type of scheme changed, but also there are rules on how much you can now contribute to a scheme each year under tax legislation, and there are rules governing when you can take it out (age 55, thanks to pension freedoms).
It had once been understood that you got a job for life until age 60, when you retired. People were expected to live off the state pension, supplemented by a workplace pension that was considered a 'work perk'.
But then, back in 1988, the government made a big move that signalled the first in a line of changes to state pensions. In 1988, the UK passed legislation to allow people to opt out of Serps (the state earnings-related pension scheme) and take out personal pensions instead; but the pensions mis-selling scandals of the 1990s caused a serious setback for savers.
From May 1990, measures were put in place to ensure equality for men and women, who had been disadvantaged under old pension scheme contracts, under pensions equalisation as laid out in the famous Barber case.
Yet nearly 30 years on we are still working through the very high-profile ramifications of inadequate equalisation measures, implemented badly.
This means that even as late as 2016 the Department for Work and Pensions was forced to issue a consultation on a new methodology for equalising pensions for the effect of inequalities caused by GMPs in private pension schemes, while HM Treasury was carrying out a separate consultation on how best to treat GMPs for affected members of public service pension schemes.
But even with all this political willpower to improve the situation, until very recently, not all employers offered a pension. People working for micro or small organisations were often doubly disadvantaged, by being paid a minimum wage and working with no pension or other employee benefits.
Now, since 2012, all workplaces must offer access to a pension thanks to automatic enrolment and from this year, 2018, there should be no employer left behind when it comes to auto-enrolment.
To outline all the changes to workplace pensions would probably require a whole new website, so here's a quick overview of just four of the biggest changes to workplace pensions in the past 20 or so years.
DB to DC - and beyond
In the early 1990s, applying for a job also meant finding out whether or not the employer offered a defined benefit (DB) pension scheme, and making sure you joined it on day one.
That was certainly the advice I got from my mother (who used to work in pensions), and was the advice I followed.
But nowadays DB schemes still open to new members are rarer than hens' teeth and those who are already in DB schemes are often finding their employer will find a way to transform the workplace pension from a gold-plated final salary scheme to a double-edged defined contribution (DC) one, in which all the investment risk is passed from scheme sponsor to scheme member, and where the only way to ensure a comfortable retirement is to put as much in as you are allowed to under scheme rules.
