Around a quarter of over-60s in employment are believed to be opting out of saving into workplace pensions through auto-enrolment, a report claims.
Royal London claimed 23% of employed sexagenarians were opting out of auto-enrolment, much higher than the 10% national opt-out average.
Employed over-60s are eligible for workplace pensions if they earn more than £10,000 a year and have yet to reach their state pension age.
Employers must contribute at least 3% of an eligible worker's qualifying earnings to their pension scheme, while employees make up the rest of the contributions to 8%.
To add context, the Office for National Statistics' most recent labour market overview showed that 1.1 million over-60s are in full-time employment.
That could mean that around 253,000 over-60s are potentially missing out on employer contributions and government tax relief.
Helen Morrissey, pension specialist at Royal London, said:
"It is understandable that someone at the age of 60 might think it is too late to save enough to make a difference to their retirement income but they are wrong.
"Our figures show older workers are throwing away thousands of pounds on retirement income by opting out of their scheme.
"We would urge anyone thinking of opting out of their auto-enrolment scheme to think twice before doing so."
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