Yesterday I finally was organised enough to review my pension arrangements with my financial advisor. On reviewing the various schemes that I have found myself part of, she noted that all of the investments were in the ‘default’ funds selected by each provider. This is perhaps OK, but perhaps not. The key point is that at no time have I made any conscious decision regarding fund allocation. I suspect I am not the only one to behave in this way…

The default option is the one that you in effect choose if you do nothing. And, of course, doing nothing is the easiest thing for us to do, hence the power of the default effect. This is perhaps the behavioural parallel to Newton’s first law of motion - a body will remain at rest, or uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force.

In our increasingly busy lives, we are more at risk of default behaviour that is not in our best interests - think about the bank account that you have held for many years that you know is not a good deal. Our challenge is to see what we do not usually see, to identify and challenge default patterns in our behaviour and choices. Right, time for my mid-afternoon coffee…