Company Pension Schemes - Part II

In the last article, we looked at company pension schemes. Here we look at what happens when you change companies and how you can boost your company pension.

What happens when you change jobs

Under an occupational scheme, if you have worked for an employer for two years you get to keep the value of any pensions benefits that have built up if you change jobs (If you have worked for less than two years with an employer, you basically just get back any contributions that you've put in). Either you can keep the 'preserved benefits' in the old scheme, or you can get the old scheme to transfer enough money (called the 'transfer value') to the new scheme to give you the same benefits that you had already built up in the old scheme.

Whether your better to keep your preserved benefit or transfer to a new scheme is always a tricky question. In theory there should be no difference as you should be able to invest the transfer value elsewhere and get the same final pension pot. But it's very difficult to check if this is the case. 

The trouble with transferring is that it often costs you money to do it (some old schemes make very high charges in these instances) and that would make the transfer value less than what you'd have if you left the preserved benefits alone. This is one situation where it usually makes sense to seek professional financial advice, especially if large sums are involved.

With people changing jobs more frequently these days, some are ending up with lots of little pension policies scattered around. That makes even more difficult to keep track of them all, and work out how much you need to continue adding to your pension.

Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs)

AVCs are an option for people who are members of an occupational scheme, but who don't think their benefits are going to be enough. There are also things called 'Free-Standing AVCs' or 'FSAVCs'. These are like a private version of an AVC and, if you're a member of an occupational scheme, then you can use one to top-up your contributions completely independently of your employer.

As you might imagine, an AVC (or FSAVC) for a defined contribution pension just increases your contributions, although they might be in a slightly different place from your main scheme. Where an AVC scheme is available for a defined benefit pension scheme (generally only in the public sector), your contributions can purchase 'added years'. In other words, you are buying extra years to be taken into account in calculating your final salary benefits.

An AVC, sponsored by your employer, has an advantage over an FSAVC because of 'economies of scale'. In other words, by grouping together with your fellow employees, the overall charges tend to be lower. 

It seems likely that AVCs will become less and less significant in future, as the new pension rules introduced in April 2006 allow people to put more money into their pensions than they could previously. This makes AVCs more or less redundant for defined contribution schemes, as people will be able to put their money into personal pension schemes alongside their company pension scheme. AVCs will probably be mostly confined to buying additional years for the dwindling numbers of defined benefit schemes.

Company pensions for everyone

Before we move on from company pensions, a quick word about the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST). This is the government's plan to give everyone over 22, and who earns over roughly £7,500, access to a pension scheme of some sort. 

It is due to start in 2012, when larger employers will be required to offer it. Smaller employers won't have to join until a few years later. It will be a low-cost scheme, with annual charges of around 0.3%, into which employees will be automatically enrolled (unless they are already a member of an existing company scheme). 

Contribution levels will be set low initially, but from 2017 the minimum contribution level will be 8% of earnings, of which 3% must come from your employer.