Those who are canny enough to start a pension at 19 are as rare as monkeys in Kerry. Outside company schemes, the average person left to their own devices doesn't start a pension until they are fast approaching 40. Even for those who are well past their 40th birthday, it is not too late to start investing for retirement.

Whether you have had a pension for years or are just beginning one, the first thing to do is to focus on a target date for retirement and develop your strategy around that. With a personal pension plan, the earliest retirement age you can select is normally 60. You cannot get at the money before then unless you have to retire early for health reasons.

With a company plan you can retire at an earlier age, albeit with a smaller pension. However you are only allowed to fund the pension on the basis that you are paying until 60 - in other words you cannot compress the pension. When reviewing or assessing a pension plan you have to consider the level of contributions, size of payout, risk benefits and investment strategy.

According to Mr John McGovern of Becketts Employee Benefit Consultants, it is essential to carry out a review of your pension every three years. "When the pension is set up, calculations and projections are made based on certain assumptions, such as salary increases and the rate of return of the fund. Obviously these factors need to be reviewed regularly so that the pension can deliver."

With defined benefit schemes, there is not much to review as the scheme is fixed. The main issue is the possibility of making additional voluntary contributions. Regardless of age, members of company schemes can contribute up to 15 per cent of their salary and claim tax relief on that amount. Risk benefits, such as permanent health insurance and life assurance, go hand in hand with pensions but you shouldn't let them overlap.

According to Mr Aidan McLoughlin of Financial Engineering Network, risk benefits should always be taken out separately so that you always know what your pension is worth. Otherwise there is a possibility of the cost of life assurance, for instance, eating into your pension fund. At this stage of your life, spouse and dependant benefits may be important. You should know what will happen to your fund if you die in service. With dependants it is usual for the life cover to be at least four times your salary. Whether that is in addition to or instead of the value of the fund depends on the pension.

In the early years of the fund, a person with dependants will need to pay more for life cover, but as the fund grows it's advisable to offset the value of the fund against life assurance costs. As for asset allocation, you may not have started out right but it's not too late to change your strategy and go for growth assets. If you have more than 10 years to go to retirement, then it would make sense to go for pure equities. Some people will be happy to stay in equities until quite close to retirement age.

What type of fund you choose depends, as with all investments, on your attitude to risk and return.

It can be the case that people in their forties, who have been working for about 20 years, are in a position to increase their pension contributions significantly.

A note of warning about increasing contributions: before you start investing heavily in your pension fund you should find out what the charges structure will be.

If you set up a commission product at 30, with a monthly contribution of £100 (€127), and now you want to double that amount, make sure you agree a flat fee up front for the increase.

Otherwise the broker may treat the additional contribution as a new contribution and take the full commission from you again. Lump sums are treated differently, with a commission rate of up to 5 per cent but again you can and should negotiate.