By STEVE WEBB, PENSIONS EXPERT AND COLUMNIST, THIS IS MONEY

Updated: 04:24 EST, 16 February 2026

Today is the 10th anniversary of Steve Webb’s first pension column, published on 16 February 2016 on This is Money. Watch out for a series of articles and events to celebrate this landmark all this week.

I have a question about a joint life 100 per cent annuity. Here is my quote. Total pension fund: £375,000. Payment frequency: monthly. Income payment: in arrears.

Tax-free lump sum: £25,000.00 (6.67 per cent). Guarantee period: no. Value protection: no. Annual increase: no. Pay to a spouse/dependant after death: yes 100 per cent.

I do not fully understand the guarantee option. As it is a 100 per cent joint life annuity why doesn’t it have a guarantee period as I thought it was for both of us until both our deaths?

Also what is the difference between advance or arrears?

Steve Webb replies: When you use your pension pot to secure an income for life or ‘annuity’, you have several options about the way in which you take it.

For example, it can be the same amount each year or have an annual uplift, it can make a payout to a surviving spouse or partner after your death and so on.

In your case, you have opted for what is called a ‘100 per cent joint life’ annuity.

What this means is that if you die before your named beneficiary (typically a spouse), the annuity will pay out to them in full for the rest of their life.

A different option is what is called a guarantee period.

In this case, when you take out the policy, if you were to die not long afterwards, the policy would continue to pay out for a set guaranteed period – say a minimum of five years – to your nominated beneficiary.

I can see why the way this information has been presented to you is causing confusion. As far as you are concerned, the payments are ‘guaranteed’ even if you die, so you are concerned that it says there is no ‘guarantee period’.

What is going on here is that there could, sadly, be a scenario in which both you and your spouse die not long after the policy is taken out.

In this situation, the policy would simply stop because there is no ‘guarantee period’.

If you wanted to avoid this risk you could specify that as well as your policy being on a ‘joint life’ basis, you also wanted a guaranteed minimum payout period.

If you did so, and both of you died relatively early in the life of the policy, your heirs or other beneficiaries could get a payout.

The odds of both of you dying quickly after taking out the policy are presumably quite low, so you might find that including such a guarantee in addition would not significantly reduce the regular annuity income from the policy.

On your second question, payment in arrears simply means that if the policy were to start on (say) 1 January, you would not get your first monthly payment until the end of the month.

This would be the payment for January, paid in arrears.

You can, of course, opt to have the money paid in advance (the start of the month in my example above).

You might want to do this if, for example, you no longer had a wage coming in and needed the annuity to start straight away to cover this month’s bills.

However, because you are getting the money sooner, the insurance company would probably quote you a slightly lower price if you asked for payment in advance rather than in arrears.

I am grateful to Mark Ormston of Retirement Line for helpful insights in writing this week’s column.

Ask Steve Webb a pension question

Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb is This Is Money’s Agony Uncle.

He is ready to answer your questions, whether you are still saving, in the process of stopping work, or juggling your finances in retirement.

Steve left the Department of Work and Pensions after the May 2015 election. He is now a partner at actuary and consulting firm Lane Clark & Peacock.

If you would like to ask Steve a question about pensions, please email him at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.

Steve will do his best to reply to your message in a forthcoming column, but he won’t be able to answer everyone or correspond privately with readers. Nothing in his replies constitutes regulated financial advice. Published questions are sometimes edited for brevity or other reasons.

Please include a daytime contact number with your message – this will be kept confidential and not used for marketing purposes.

If Steve is unable to answer your question, you can also contact MoneyHelper, a Government-backed organisation which gives free assistance on pensions to the public. It can be found here and its number is 0800 011 3797.

Steve receives many questions about state pension forecasts and COPE – the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent. If you are writing to Steve on this topic, he responds to a typical reader question here. It includes links to Steve’s several earlier columns about state pension forecasts and contracting out, which might be helpful.  

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When Mike Thomas’ elderly neighbour got sick and needed to sell his small bungalow on a wide lot in east Edmonton, Thomas immediately became concerned about the home being torn down and replaced with something much bigger.

Thomas said he has invested a lot into his own bungalow over the years: an addition, gardens, a back patio and solar panels on the roof.

He felt like he had no avenue to stop a developer if they purchased the home to the south and wanted to build a multi-family housing complex.

“I would be losing enjoyment of my entire property,” Thomas said.

“My property value would plummet for resale — even if the house is nice — because I’ve got a monster next to me that completely blocks all the light.”

So, he made a life-changing decision — risking his financial future by buying his neighbour’s home in the Bergman neighbourhood.

Thomas had to come up with $75,000 in three months to make the purchase.

“I’m not special and I’m not wealthy — and that killed me.”

He now rents the bungalow next door, at a discount, to a family of Ukrainian refugees.

7:13
Infill, taxes & public safety dominate Edmonton politics in 2025

In 2023, the City of Edmonton changed zoning bylaws to allow for more multi-unit buildings up to three storeys in all neighbourhoods.

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The aim was to encourage a variety of development to be built more easily in residential areas.

Since then, there’s been mixed reaction to the increase in multi-unit buildings replacing single-family homes.

Infill ended up being a contentious topic during the 2025 fall municipal election campaign after residents of established communities expressed concerns with property values, not enough parking, predatory developers, quality of builds and housing affordability.

1:54
Mixed reaction to Edmonton city council zoning bylaw changes

Some Edmonton homeowners in established, upscale areas like Crestwood and Glenora have even gone so far as to explore placing restrictive covenants on their properties to prevent future development.

The legally binding agreement goes on a property title and limits how a property is used or developed, even after it is sold to a new owner.

Neighbourhoods United has volunteers from 50 mature neighbourhoods who are amplifying their concerns about infill together.

Treasurer Dallas Moravec said their group knows of other frustrated residents doing something similar.

“I’ve heard a few different communities who have started some of these investor groups who put together some money,” Moravec said. “They’re looking to protect their neighbours’ houses that potentially they want to sell.”

“It speaks to the unpredictability of the zoning bylaws.”

1:37
More proposed infill changes headed to Edmonton city committee

Edmonton’s urban planning committee will be reviewing the city’s controversial zoning and infill policies on Feb. 9.

Reports indicate city staff recommend dropping the maximum number of units on a single lot from eight to six mid-block.

For more information, watch the video at the top of this story.

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Restaurants across B.C. that use a company to manage tip collection and staff wages say it has, without stating why, stopped distributing money and some restaurants are reporting that they are out thousands of dollars.

Everyday Payments is described as “delivering real-time employee payouts. Businesses using the service span hospitality, food service, beauty, wellness, and commission-based industries.

“Leveraging the AnyDay platform, the solution combines a powerful employer portal with a flexible mobile app and payment card for cardholders; simplifying fund management, improving visibility and control, and enabling faster, more predictable access to earnings.”

Eric Griffith, owner of Alta Bistro and Alpha Cafe in Whistler, told Global News that when he logged in to the system last Wednesday morning, he knew something was wrong.

“We’re missing $4,550,” he said.

“But I thought, ‘OK, this has to just be an error. They’ll resolve it. They must know that this has happened.’ Well, the emails go out, try to contact support, whatever, and it was just no response until the weekend.”

Griffith said business owners started realizing they were not alone.

“Monday, there was a press release from the company, which is what they emailed us as well, saying there’s some type of compliance issue. We’re working through it, and there’s a reconciliation, but no answers to any questions as to why this happened,” he said.

“What is the intention? When is the money coming back?”

Griffith said they started using the program as it saves time and administrative work and keeps track of all the money and staff tips.

“So this piece of technology was very useful and working well, absolutely well,” he said.

“The staff were happy. I was happy because I was saving time, and also it was just easy.”

However, with so much uncertainty now, Griffith said he doesn’t know what to do.

“So if it’s 5,000 to me and it’s $100,000 to someone else, it’s still like relative impact, right, which is ultimately hurting the business, the ability for the owners and businesses to pay the staff, and then, I mean, for me, it comes down to paying my suppliers and other things, right?,” he added.

“That money becomes a hole, right? So, yeah, I don’t want to think.”

4:43
Canada restaurant outlook 2026

Matthew Upton, one of the owners of The Broken Seal restaurant in Squamish, told Global News they are missing $12,000.

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“It’s huge,” he said.

“That’s over two weeks’ worth of payroll. It’s half of what our ends is. It’s a huge effect for us.”

Upton said the last week has been very challenging, trying to get in touch with someone at Everyday Payments. He said he was on hold for four hours on Friday, four hours on Saturday and four hours on Sunday and never got a response from anyone until Monday.

“It’s very concerning,” he said.

“It’s, I think, as a whole, the hospitality industry is not an easy industry to be in, and when there’s unknowns, we have such small margins, so keeping as much money in our bank account is the most important thing. So when you have large amounts come out, it’s definitely daunting, for sure.”

Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of the BC Restaurant & Foodservices Association, said he has heard the same issues from restaurants all over the province.

“I have just read two emails in the last five minutes,” he told Global News.

“One restaurant group lost $50,000, one restaurant group is out $15,000 — one’s in Prince George, one’s in Vancouver.”

Tostenson said in the case of one Vancouver restaurant, close to one million dollars was taken out of the “wallet” that Everyday Payments manages on behalf of employees to distribute tips.

“This is really, really serious, and there’s a lot of concern in the industry, because these funds go into a third party for the purposes of paying out and distribute the gratuities to our hard-working employees,” he added.

“And they’ve the company that manages that, Everyday Payments, for some reason that we don’t know, have taken the money and emptied all the wallets. I think this is in the millions of dollars, to be perfectly honest with you. This is really serious.”

Global News has reached out to Everyday Payments.

Initially, a form message was received, stating, “As you can imagine, Everyday People are inundated. Note that card creation and loading are temporarily paused while they work with DC Bank to resolve a service interruption affecting new card loads.

“Existing cardholders are not impacted and can continue using their cards as normal, but additional loads cannot be processed at this time.”

Later, a spokesperson for the company said in an email that they are aware of the concerns and they understand why the timing has been stressful for some restaurants.

“We are reviewing inquiries relating to a short transition period at the end of January, during which operational adjustments were implemented to move the platform to a fully prefunded processing model,” the statement read.

“During this period, some merchants experienced delays or changes in the timing of debits and loads.

“Importantly, funds were not removed from merchant accounts or cardholder wallets other than through established funding and settlement processes.”

Tostenson said the issue began after the company merged with another, and each appears to be pointing the finger at the other.

” Anybody is trying to reach out to the companies, all they’re doing is getting standard administrative messages back,” he said.

“And in the meantime, we’re scrambling to make sure that our employees are whole, so we’re having to find the money that’s gone to make sure we pay our employees. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Tostenson said the guidance from the industry now is for businesses to check their wallets online and see what money is in there.

He also confirmed that police reports have been filed in Whistler and Prince George, but no one has heard from the company.

“The question that everybody wants to know is, where is my money?” Tostenson said.