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• Try to look at your pension fund's returns over the longer term. Don't just read the headlines - look at the facts. Despite some quite large weekly swings, the FTSE 100 is only down about 10% since the high point of last summer. This followed a 4 year plus bull run, which saw an 80% return. If you have been invested for a number of years, you will have made money; possibly quite a lot.



• Get up to date information on your pension savings - the paper losses may well be less than you fear. Most insurance companies can give you this information instantly over the phone and/or internet. You need to know what the true picture is.



• If your pension is invested in a broad spread of assets, such as a managed fund, your savings will be partially protected from the whole stockmarket downturn. Typically no more than 60-70% of your funds will be invested in shares - the balance will be in cash, government gilts, bonds and property.



• That said, if you are invested in the stockmarket, you may well now be faced with a smaller pension fund than was the case a year ago. Essentially it may well boil down to whether you accept your losses now, cash your investments in and lock in to a lower level of income for the rest of you life; or stay invested for a couple more years, in the hope that you will recoup some of these losses. If you go down the latter route you are accepting the possibility that things could just get even worse, so this is a higher risk approach.

• Do you actually need to retire today? Can work for another 6 months or so, thereby leaving your pension funds intact for longer?



• If you do need (or want) to retire now, are there any other savings you can call upon for the first few months?

• If, like most investors, you do want the security of buying an annuity and having a guaranteed regular income, make sure that you do shop around and find the highest annuity you possible can. Do not buy whatever your existing pension company is offering- it may be a lousy deal. The difference between the best and lowest annuity income can be huge; typically 15% for the rest of your life. As the average 60 year olds will live for another 25 years plus, this can easily run into thousands of pounds extra income. Comparison annuity search-engines, such as Hargreaves Lansdown's, will give you a personal quote in a matter of minutes showing how much more income you are entitled to.



• Increasing numbers of investors are choosing to take income from their pensions via income drawdown, rather than an annuity. These plans allow you to leave your pension fund money fully invested whilst drawing income at least until age 75, by which time most investors have purchased an annuity. Drawdown plans often allow for the required income to be drawn from particular investment funds. Many of today's investors are drawing income from their cash or bond holdings and are leaving their equity backed ones untouched. Again, this is giving time for your investments to possibly recover.



• Income drawdown, like ordinary annuities, allows you to take 25% of your funds as a tax free cash sum - this can be used to provide an income for a number of years. With these plans, the rest of your funds can be left fully invested, which reduces the crystallisation today of any losses. There is no requirement to start taking any income at all until your 75th birthday.