Insist on Knowing these from Your Pensions Trust

As a member of a Pension scheme, you have a right to be given certain information about what you have signed up to without having to ask for it. Your Scheme Administrator must give you relevant information about your pension, automatically, on all these instances referenced below.

Also, if you’re in a defined benefit scheme, the scheme must send you, every year, a summary funding statement. This gives you important details about the ability of the scheme to pay the benefits due under the scheme.

What you should Know on joining a particular Scheme #

Your scheme or provider must give you basic information about the scheme when you join. If you’re automatically enrolled in your workplace pension scheme, you must be told about automatic enrollment; that you have been automatically enrolled and what this means to you; and about your right to opt-out.

If you do not qualify to be automatically enrolled, you must be told about the workplace pension scheme and your right to choose to join it. The information must be given to you before the end of the month in which you are automatically enrolled or have a right to join.

Basic details on workplace pension schemes #

If you are automatically enrolled, you should be given the basic details of the scheme within one month of being automatically enrolled. If you’re choosing to join a pension scheme, you should be given the basic details within two months of joining the scheme. The type of information you must be given is:

1. What the scheme is called and who the trustees are
2. How you build up benefits and how you can transfer other pension contributions into the existing
3. The rate of employer and employee contributions and how you can pay more whether the pension scheme is registered with the Pensions Regulatory Authority
4. Whether dependents’ benefits are payable, and if so, the conditions for payment and how to get a transfer quote, a refund of what you’ve paid in or details of the benefits you have built up
5. How to complain about the scheme, including how to contact us, the Pensions Ombudsman or the Pensions Regulator about a complaint.
6. Also, if your workplace pension scheme is a defined contribution scheme, your scheme must tell you about your investment options, including investment charges. Your scheme or provider will probably give you a scheme particular containing this information.

If you have a stakeholder pension, your provider should send you an annual statement automatically within three months of the end of the scheme year.

The statement must contain, as a minimum:

1. the value of your pot on the day before the start of the statement year; the value of your pot on the last day of the statement year (or at the time when you left the scheme if you left during the year);
2. the amounts paid in by you;
3. the amounts paid in by your employer;
4. the amount of any tax relief paid into your pot;
5. any amounts deducted for charges; and
6. a statement giving a list of other information that you can request, such as the amount of investment gain or any amounts transferred in from another pot.