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Overview
Introducing workplace pension plans
Your workplace pension plan is a way to save for retirement. Every month your employer makes a contribution on your behalf and under the rules of the plan you may also be required to contribute. Over the years, you may build up a significant amount of money.
Essential facts
- You don’t lose your money if you move jobs – if you change employer in the future, the regular contributions to your workplace pension plan will stop but the savings you’ve made will stay invested in your account. You will continue to have access to your pension savings account through PlanViewer where you will be able to review your investments, change your investment choice, continue to have access to plan information and select your retirement benefits when the time comes. You may also have the option of transferring your pension savings to your new employer’s workplace plan or to another pension arrangement.
- You’re in control of your savings – if you don’t make any choices and you’d rather leave it up to the experts, your pension savings will be invested in your plan’s ‘default’ investment option. Alternatively, you can decide how the money in your pension savings account is invested through the range of funds offered in your plan. When the time comes to take money out of your pension, you will be able to choose what you do with your savings, subject to your plan’s rules. Although your pension plan will have a default retirement age, you can adjust this at any time if it doesn’t match your plans. It is currently possible for most people to take early retirement but this is subject to certain conditions. Please check your Plan rules for further information. Find out what effect your retirement age has on your pension savings.
How your pension plan works
1. Contributing
Once you have been enrolled in your pension plan, your employer will pay a percentage of your salary into your account, along with any contributions of your own.
You can check the contribution levels for your plan by logging in to PlanViewer and navigating to ‘Documents’, select ‘Plan documents’ where you will find the ‘Your Plan Explained’ document.
2. Investing
Once the money is paid to your plan, it will need to be invested. Your workplace pension plan has a default investment option which is designed to suit the needs of many different members throughout their working lives.
Your money will be invested in this default investment option unless you make your own choices from the range of funds and options available in your plan. You can change your investment options at any time in PlanViewer or by calling our Workplace Investing Service Centre.
You can find out more about these options on our ‘How pensions are invested’ page.
What it costs
There are no explicit charges for saving in your pension plan.
However, there are charges for the administration of your plan and management of the funds you invest in. These are collectively known as a total expense ratio (TER). They are reflected in a fund’s daily unit price, which can fluctuate from day to day. They are not explicit charges taken from your pension savings and so do not show on your transaction history.
In addition to the TER, there may be other costs for your pension, such as the fees for buying and selling a fund’s underlying investments. Like the TER, these are not explicit charges and are built into the daily unit price of your funds.
You can find out what funds you have invested in and read fund factsheets to find out each fund’s TER, as well as what it invests in, by logging in to PlanViewer.
Ready to find out more?
Making contributions
Depending on your plan rules, contributions will be deducted by your employer before you receive your pay each month and are paid to the FEPP's depositary to invest in your pensions savings account.
You’re an investor
We typically invest your pension savings in funds designed to make your money grow in the earlier years, or to protect your money from sudden falls caused by volatility as you approach retirement.