Getting started
Your pension
It takes planning and thinking ahead to save up enough to enjoy life when you retire.
We have a pension plan to help you do just that. The
Defined Contribution
2010 Pension Plan (DC2010 Plan) is a group personal pension plan for our UK
employees. We would like to tell you why it’s good to be a part of this plan, what
you need to think about, where to get more information and what to do next.
Make the most of
your benefits,
your way.
You can take part in our flexible benefits plan, called
your benefits,your way. It offers a wide range of benefit choices to suit your circumstances, including automatic membership of the DC2010 Plan.
You can use your ‘flex allowance’* to help you make the right contribution into the DC2010 Plan. You can also use some of your base pay to pay more into your plan. You don’t pay tax and National Insurance contributions on the portion of your base pay that is paid towards your plan. This makes it tax efficient to save for retirement.
The DC2010 Plan is managed by Aegon, a
well-known provider of personal pensions. We will pay the contributions you wish to make into your plan each month. Aegon will invest the money on your behalf in one of several funds you can choose from. This will build up a retirement savings pot while you are working.
When you retire, you can decide how to use your savings pot by choosing from a wide range of possible options. Pension Wise, a free and impartial Government service, can help you understand your pension options. For more information visit
pensionwise.gov.uk.
* The amount of your flex allowance is set out in the terms and conditions of your employment.
People are living longer these days, which means you could enjoy many years of retirement. So it is important to save for the costs that come with retirement. The sooner you start saving, the longer your pension savings will have to grow.
Through your benefits,your way you can regularly review and choose the amount you wish to save. This will help you balance your current personal circumstances with your expectations of retirement.
If you’d like to pay more than your flex allowance into the plan, you can! Of course, you could choose to pay less into your pension and have more cash in hand or to spend on other benefits, but that would affect the amount you may have available in retirement.
There is lots of information available to help you make informed decisions. The flexibility – and responsibility – is yours.
Save for tomorrow, today
Saving for retirement is a long-term investment that needs a long-term outlook. Investment in stocks and shares is often an important part of any savings approach. However, stock markets can sometimes fall in value very suddenly, and these lower values could sometimes last for a number of years.
When you are young and still several decades away from retirement, there is time for values to rise again before you make your retirement income decisions. In the meantime, you could keep making contributions and benefit from the lower prices of the stocks and shares. In fact, if you are too cautious with your investment choices at this stage, your savings may not grow enough to keep pace with inflation.
On the other hand, the nearer you are to your retirement, the less time there is for stocks and shares to recover after a fall.
It is important to understand the different types of investments available
to you and to think of how they might change in the future.
You should consider how you would feel about your investments rising and falling. And do you want to take control of your investments yourself or leave it to Aegon’s investment management team?
The aim is to know yourself, know your options and to choose investments that meet your needs.
Your DC2010 Plan offers 2** investment options.
‘Lifestyle’ – the automatic option
• This option is designed to track your changing investment needs for you throughout your working life up to retirement.
• It automatically invests in certain funds on your behalf, changing the balance between risk and return as you approach retirement.
‘Freestyle’ – choose your investment funds
• There are 8 funds to choose from, including equities, bonds and cash.• If you choose this option you will need to keep an eye on how your funds perform and update your fund choices in line with your planned retirement age if necessary.
**You can also invest part of your contribution in Lifestyle and part of it in chosen funds.
It’s all about choice
Get to know the DC2010 Plan
Visit Aegon online to watch 4 short videos (around 3-6 minutes) to find out:
• How the plan works.
• How contributions work.
• What your investment options are.
• Where to find more information.
Enjoy the benefits of your plan
Once you join the plan it will be in your name so, if you change employer, you can take your savings with you. You can transfer into another plan or keep your savings invested with Aegon.
You can take your pension savings from age 55*** at any time you choose, even if you are still working. Your choices at retirement will depend on many factors, including:
• How much and how long you pay into your pension savings pot.
• How well your investments grow and how much it costs to invest.
• How much it costs to buy a pension when you retire and which benefits you choose.
• What flexibility and freedom the law allows at the time.
• Your state of health at the time you make your choices.
Take advantage of competitive charges
The plan has a charge of £2 a month which is taken from your plan value. The effective annual management charge (AMC) is 0.22%, which is built into the unit price of each investment fund.
***This is expected to change to age 57 in 2028.
Make your plan work for you
You also get an active member discount of 0.11% as long as regular contributions are being paid into your plan. Even if you stop working for us, but keep paying a regular contribution of at least £20 a month, the effective AMC will remain at 0.11%. If you stop making regular contributions to your plan, your AMC will return to 0.22%. You can learn more at pension.aegon.co.uk/bp.
Keep up to date with your plan
Aegon will send you a ‘policy number’ when you join. You can also use the policy number to register online and:
• Securely check and update your personal details.
• See the current value of your pension savings pot.
• Check your plan history, including how much you’ve paid in.
• Move your investments between different funds.
• Model what your pension savings might be at different ages.
• Model your options on retirement.
Aegon will write to you every year to tell you how much has been paid into your pension plan, what it’s currently worth and what it might be worth when you retire.
You can choose how to make the most of what we offer and save money
on tax and National Insurance. Getting started is as easy as 1-2-3…
1
Know when to choose
When you join us, you will receive a ‘Welcome to your benefits,your way’ letter, telling you the date by which you need to make your new joiner benefit choices (your ‘new joiner deadline date’) and how to make them. You can change your investment choice through Aegon’s secure online portal at any timethroughout the year.
You can also review and change your pension contribution at any time throughout the year (except between the end of October and the start of the ‘annual enrolment period’ in November). There are some limits on the number of times a month you can change your contribution levels.
Life events (such as the birth of a child, marriage and so on) may also play a role in your choices. For more information on all of your benefit choices, visit the My HR home page and follow the link to your benefits,your way
(in the bottom right hand corner).
2
Know your choices
You can view your total reward statement on My HR and find out more about the benefits available to you.
To find out more about your pension, please visit
pension.aegon.co.uk/bp and watch the 4 short videos. You can read more detailed explanations and print off fund fact sheets to find out more about the investment funds themselves. You may want to use the your benefits,your way benefit modeller when you choose your benefits. We also suggest using Aegon’s online tools to help set your retirement goals, choose how much to save and how to invest.
If you have any questions, please phone 03456 09 16 60 (Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm, UK time and work days) or email
BP@aegon.co.uk.
3
Make your choices
On or before your new joiner deadline date:
• You must let us know how much to pay into the plan.
• You must choose your investment option.
If you don’t choose a contribution level and investment option:
• We will invest a part of your flex allowance (of the same value as 5% of your base pay) into the plan.
• We will automatically choose the Lifestyle investment option on your behalf.
This does not mean we think this investment option and
contribution level are best for you, so you must still think carefully what is the most suitable for you and your circumstances.
