The pension system in France is not the simplest in the world… For millions of taxpayers, the exercise even quickly turns into a headache. Calculation of the pension, liquidation and redemption of quarters, special cases and confusion at the pension funds… How to find your way around, as you approach your departure?
For several years, pension advice companies have been multiplying in an attempt to provide answers to French people who are trying to navigate, as best they can, in this anxiety-provoking quagmire.
EOR (Expertise Optimization Retraite) is one of them.
Its founder, Jean-François Chauffeté, explains the principle of his activity. “Retirement advice is there to inform people about their rights, beyond official sources which are often incomplete. And even when they are complete, they do not always present all the ways to exploit data related to retirement and the end of a career.
Because the transition from working life to retirement has its share of technicalities and complications. And few French people really know what they should do to optimize their retirement.
“There is the technical aspect, the counting of points, but also the practical aspect, with the implementation of rights”, continues Jean-François Chauffeté. People don’t know if it’s good to buy back quarters, or not, for example, there are so many rules…”
Above all, for the founder of EOR, the French are very poorly equipped to prepare for their retirement, and are, in fact, regularly exposed to the errors of the funds.
“Pension funds are very often wrong, and it is impossible for people to realize it, so they let it happen. I saw errors in very complete files, where everything was reported, the quarters, the salaries… Everything seemed consistent, people could not know it and yet they lost out on the change”, he adds.
An administrative jumble that pushes many French people to call on advice, or coaches, in retirement.
“People who come to see us are lost, and there are people of all ages, says the business manager. They no longer know what to do with the system, and the funds of course do not respond to them, even with computer progress, it is so complicated to manage”.
The principle, therefore, is simple: the retired coach manages your file, from A to Z, and answers all your questions, even the most specific.
For Jean-François Chauffeté, coaching, or advice, in retirement, is for everyone. “At the start, it was top-of-the-range, we work mainly for business leaders and the liberal professions. But now, there is wider communication around this system, people are aware that this service exists, and they pay us in five or six instalments to manage their retirement”, he states.
At EOR, the service generally consists of a full retirement consultation, for the fixed price of 4,000 euros including tax.
But there are also more “special” cases, explains the founder.
“Some people come for arbitration, in this case, we are not going to take stock, but a simple retirement interview, billed at 290 euros excluding tax per hour. We will look at the career, and say what to do vis-à-vis the pension funds, how to exploit its rights…”
Among those who use the services of EOR, there are also active people. “These are people who have to make trade-offs during their career, or who wish to become independent for example, and who are trying to find out what the differential will be in terms of their rights. Many people also ask me how much their retirement costs them in their payslip. And there are working people aged 34 or 40 who have been offered a job abroad and who want to know what will happen to their rights when they go to such and such a country,” explains Jean-François Chauffeté. from Planet.
For Jean-François Chauffeté, it may be wise to call on a retirement coach if you are particularly worried about the upcoming pension reform. “You should not go to insurers, who are there to make you take out PERs where you will not receive much, and whose simulations are not very realistic”, he specifies.
For him, there are 4 ages, or situations, where retirement advice can be beneficial:
For the founder, retired consulting is a bit like “the private extrapolation of a public service that should be free”…
