Last week, I had one of the most intimidating meetings of my life – and I’ve met prime ministers, a US president – and once had one-on-ones with Rupert Murdoch. It was a 90-minute Microsoft Teams “chat” about my retirement future with a financial adviser, who has become my trusted guide through the Stygian darkness of my own earnings, pensions and investment future.

These subjects have induced hives all my adult life. There’s a reason I became a journalist and then a teacher of English and literacy – not an accountant or banker. I truly hate thinking about this stuff. But think about it, we must. We have one year now before so much changes and many of us are sleepwalking into potential pensions penury.

For decades, I treated my pension as an afterthought; a line on a payslip; a digital folder I would “get round to”. Retirement was a hazy future beach house, pensions the dreary scaffolding. Except now it is urgent. Next year’s changes to inheritance tax rules will reshape how pensions are treated on death – from April 2027 they will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax, and treated as part of a person’s estate.

For decades, they have been one of the more protected corners of personal finance, often sitting outside your estate for inheritance tax. Families have planned accordingly: spend other assets first, preserve the pension, allow it to grow, pass it on efficiently. But, that assumption may not survive beyond next year.

If pensions are drawn more firmly into the inheritance tax net, the implications are serious. A pot you assumed would move to your children could instead be reduced. For some families it could mean thousands of pounds diverted from the next generation, simply because no one adjusted their plans. The awkward truth is that you cannot make sensible decisions about drawdown, gifting or timing without understanding this shifting backdrop. Taxation should not drive every choice, but ignoring it is financial self-harm.

Which brings me to a word that makes me wince: annuities. After the pension freedoms of 2015, which removed the requirement to buy annuity many opted for drawdown: keeping funds invested and withdrawing as needed. It sounds flexible and modern. Annuities, by contrast, felt old-fashioned: hand over your pot, receive a fixed income for life. Yet in a world where inheritance tax looms, the calculation changes.

An annuity offers certainty and removes the risk of outliving your savings. But it can also affect what is left behind. Depending on the type of annuity, the consequences for a surviving spouse or children vary. This is about family architecture.

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It’s not just annuities. It’s tax-free lump sums, your marginal rate in retirement and the interaction between pension withdrawals and the rest of your estate. Does taking more now, before rules change, make sense or merely trigger other liabilities? None of this is glamorous, but it might determine whether you can support your children, afford decent care or leave your partner secure.

We are oddly squeamish about money, myself included. We detail our ailments glibly, but go quiet at the mention of financial planning. Yet, adulthood involves confronting the daunting: ask those basic questions, seek advice if possible, and recognise that when the inheritance tax framework shifts, it will not spare you.

Retirement may now last 30 years. The rules governing how we fund it and pass it on are changing. Sleepwalking is not an option. Lean in and learn the language, before it’s too late.

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