If you have Money Purchase Additional Voluntary Contributions (MPAVCs), your MPAVC fund will first be used to provide all or part of your tax-free lump sum before giving up any pension.
Your retirement benefits
Return to Deferred members section
In this section
How much could I get?
Deferred pensions are calculated at your date of leaving and increased broadly by reference to the Retail Prices Index each year to make sure they keep up with inflation.
You can find out how much you could get by:
- Logging on to OneView and clicking through to My Retirement Planner
- Contacting Aptia for an illustration
Taking your pension
You can generally take your pension from age 60 without a reduction in your benefits, or from age 50 if you left because of redundancy. If you choose to retire early, between the ages of 55 and 59, there will be a reduction in the amount you receive.
You can visit My Retirement Planner via OneView at any time to understand more about your retirement benefits and when you can retire.
Aptia will automatically write to you a few months before your 60th birthday (or age 50 if you were made redundant) to let you know your retirement options. This will include a personalised retirement quote and all the forms you need to carry out the next steps.
Remember: You don’t have to retire at 60; you can retire later or, in some cases, earlier. If you want to retire early, you’ll need to contact Aptia for a retirement quote.
Different early retirement rules apply to some members of the Scheme, such as those who were in the Manual Workers Pension Scheme.
Bridge the gap option
If you retire early and take your benefits before you reach State Pension Age (SPA), you have the option to ‘Bridge the Gap’ in your income by receiving a larger pension from the Scheme up to your SPA, and a smaller one afterwards. This is also known as the ‘levelling option’.
You can find out more about the levelling option in the Bridge the Gap booklet.
Open the bookletLump sum option
When you first take your pension, you can choose to take up to 25% of the value of your benefits as a tax-free lump sum – subject to a maximum of 25% of the lump sum allowance (LSA), which is currently £268,275 (25% of £1,073,100). The remainder of your benefit will be a taxable income for the rest of your life and will increase each year.
You can find out how much your lump sum and pension could be by using My Retirement Planner via OneView or requesting a retirement quote from Aptia.
If you choose to give up part of your pension for a lump sum, this will reduce the level of pension income you get. However, the pension payable to your dependant/spouse is not affected.
If you paid AVCs
You might have paid Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs). Your AVCs will provide you with additional benefits at retirement.
There are two different types of AVCs:
or
Money Purchase AVCs (MPAVCs)
Added years
Money Purchase AVCs
Understanding your AVCs
Read our guide to AVCs to help you understand how AVCs work and what options are available to you. There are some risks with AVCs, so please read the guide carefully before you make any decisions.
My Retirement Planner
If you plan to retire, this is the place to start. My Retirement Planner is a modelling tool designed for deferred members who are within a year of their earliest Scheme retirement age. For most people, that will be age 54 and over, but for some members it may be younger, depending on their reason for leaving the Company.
It’s a secure site that uses your pension details to take you through a series of retirement options. As you approach retirement, it lets you customise certain aspects to show a range of different illustrations and outcomes, with links through to additional support and guidance.
You can use My Retirement Planner to monitor your retirement options, which may change over time. We recommend visiting the planner regularly so you can consider your retirement options.
If, after looking at your projections, you decide you want to go ahead with your plan to retire and are over age 55, please contact Aptia.
My Retirement Planner is accessed through OneView.
Getting financial advice
The Trustee has appointed a specialist firm of independent financial advisers (an IFA) to help you get clear on your options. An IFA can provide bespoke advice based on your retirement figures and specific circumstances. The Trustee will generally pay for you to receive advice when you’re within a year of your earliest Scheme retirement age (usually age 54). You can arrange this via My Retirement Planner.
Please consider carefully the timing of when you take advice, as the Trustees will only pay for this financial advice once. You can use your own IFA if you wish, but you will have to pay for this yourself. You could find one from MoneyHelper or unbiased.co.uk.
Ill-health retirement
If you’re seriously ill and unable to work in the way you normally might, you may be entitled to receive your deferred pension from the Scheme immediately, without it being reduced for early payment. If you are terminally ill and your life expectancy is less than 12 months, you may be eligible to take all of your ill-health pension as a lump sum.
The Scheme’s medical adviser would need to carry out a full medical assessment to determine whether you meet the criteria for ill-health retirement.
If this applies to you, contact Aptia to request an application pack.
Other sections
Transferring your pension benefits
Transferring your benefits elsewhere is a big decision. Find out how it works and what to think about first.
Read more
Death benefits for deferred members
Understand the benefits your beneficiaries might receive when you pass away, and how to confirm or update your nominations.
Read more