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According to a research from ING Direct, retiring Australians could lose as much as $190,000 from their superannuation savings due to the fees that have been imposed over the course of their working lives.

Retirement is a wonderful thing

Retirement should be a wonderful milestone in your life because it gives you the well-deserved from almost X number of years working without having to worry about your financial security anymore. These are the days that will be spent in the house, the beach, the cruises, or even in the mountains without worrying about deadlines, reports, and other pertinent matters related to work.

But retirement is more than just leaving your job after X number of years to call it quits. For the elderly, it’s important that they get to manage their superannuation correctly if they want to live a worry-free life. There are more than 600 super funds in Australia, and with the variations, super fees and performance can differ from one fund to another. Rate City representative Jeremy Willer says that there are 5 or 6 different types of fees, so it’s difficult for the average Australian to determine what they’re being charged.

What super ranks as the best and the worst?

Analysts from super experts Rate City found that the lowest charging fund was ANZ Smart Choice Super. They gave you a 12.83 per cent return with $300 in annual fees. Talk about a bargain.

But it’s also important to choose supers based on performance as well as fees. In terms of best performance, Rate City chose The Portfolio Service due to its 15.84 per cent return despite having a thousand-dollar annual fee. For worst performer, Optimum Professional bagged the title because of its outrageous $1300 annual fee with a low return rate of 7.4 per cent.

Taking control

Retirement is something that needs to be taken care of even before you reach that point. People need to be aware of the super funds that they invested in and pay attention to how much they’re gaining in exchange for how much they’re paying.

Australians pay as much as $20 billion in fees every year, or roughly an average of $1300 each. This is three times the average of what you would usually pay in other countries.

In an article for the Hospitality Magazine, Aoife Boothroyd puts focus on the claim of former Hooters Australia employees about how they have not been paid their Superannuation dues. There are cases of employees who have come on record saying they were never paid their Super despite giving clear account details.