Frequently asked questions

On Oneview you can:

• Access your Pension Payslips and P60s
• Change your personal information
• Update your Beneficiary Information to indicate who you want to receive any benefits payable after your death
• See your latest pension statement
• Access My Retirement Planner

Before you start you will need the personal registration code provided within your Aptia OneView welcome letter. If you have not received your welcome letter or don’t have it anymore, you can call Aptia on 0345 528 0601 or can submit a request via Aptia’s secure online portal (Contact Aptia Pensions).

You can see what information we hold on record for you by logging into Aptia’s secure member portal, OneView. Or you can call Aptia’s dedicated helpline for members on 0345 528 0601 (9am-5pm Monday through Friday). You can also use the secure Aptia pensions portal (Contact Aptia Pensions) to raise or respond to requests, upload documents, and manage your pension.

Use the secure Aptia pensions portal (Contact Aptia Pensions) to raise or respond to requests, upload documents, and manage your pension. Or you can call Aptia’s dedicated helpline for members on 0345 528 0601 (9am-5pm Monday through Friday).

A great place to start is My Retirement Planner. It’s a modelling tool designed for deferred members who are within a year of their earliest 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.

You can access My Retirement Planner by logging in to OneView.

You can also find plenty of free resources and guidance from MoneyHelper. It’s a free, impartial service, set up by the government to help you with a range of money issues.

Visit the MoneyHelper website

Be aware that these resources are here to help you, but it’s not financial advice. You may want to consider getting financial advice to help you with your pension and retirement planning.

A financial adviser can take an in-depth look at your financial situation and goals, and make a recommendation based on what’s best for you. If you are a deferred member and over the age of 54, you can get independent financial advice, from the Trustees’ appointed Independent Financial Adviser, by logging in to My Retirement Planner via OneView. In many cases, members will be able to access this advice for free.

If you would like to find your own financial adviser, you could use Unbiased.co.uk or MoneyHelper. Be aware that there’s normally a charge for financial advice. Make sure that you choose a financial adviser who is authorised by the FCA and qualified to perform retirement advice.

Pensions are considered during divorce or civil partnership dissolution settlement discussions. Your solicitor will need to consider any benefits you and your spouse or partner may have, including benefits payable from the Scheme.

Please ask your solicitor to contact Aptia for the necessary information before a pension sharing or earmarking order is drafted.

You can find more on divorce and pensions from Money Helper.

You can, but you may have to pay a tax charge to HMRC if you don’t meet one of these conditions:

• There has been at least a six-month break in employment.
• There has been at least a one-month break, and the new employment is ‘materially different’ from before.

If neither of these conditions are met, any pension payments you’ve received will be treated by HMRC as unauthorised, and they usually charge you at least 40% of the value of those payments and any lump sum you received.

The death benefits pages contain more detailed information on the benefits that your beneficiaries might be entitled to when you pass away.

• Death benefits for deferred members
• Death benefits for pensioners and dependants

You should also tell them about the report a death page, which explains how to do this and the next steps for arranging benefits.

Yes, and we encourage you update your beneficiary information as soon as you can. Be aware that you can only nominate a ‘dependant’ to receive your benefits. A dependant is defined as someone who is financially dependent on you or if your finances are inter-dependent.

You can see who you’ve nominated as your beneficiaries by logging into OneView or by contacting Aptia. If you want to make a change to your nominated beneficiaries, the quickest way is to do this through OneView. Or you can sign and return the Dependant Nomination Form to Aptia at Maclaren House, Talbot Road, Stretford, Manchester, M32 0FP. Please quote your full name, National Insurance number and the Scheme name in any correspondence.

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 known as the ‘levelling option.’

You can find out your SPA on the government website.

You can find out more on the levelling option in the Bridge the Gap booklet.

It’s generally not possible to take your entire benefits directly from the Scheme as a cash lump sum. The exceptions to this are if you are a deferred member who:

• has very small benefits (this is called ‘trivial commutation’), or;
• is terminally ill (with a recognised medical practitioner evidencing that expectation of life is less than one year).

If you wanted to take all your Scheme benefits as a lump sum, you would generally need to arrange for a transfer value to be paid into another pension arrangement. Then you could take your benefits out as a lump sum with them (providing they have this retirement option).

Be aware that doing this is a serious financial decision. You may need to take financial advice before transferring (if your pension is over £30,000). If you then decided to withdraw your pension as cash, you’d likely pay tax on a significant portion of it.

We would recommend taking independent financial advice before transferring or withdrawing a pension. You can get this from the Trustees’ appointed Independent Financial Adviser by visiting My Retirement Planner via OneView.

Visit the Pension tax rules page for more information on tax at retirement, in retirement, and when you die.