How to Retire

Normal Retirement

The Scheme’s Normal Retirement Age (NRA) is 65, but you don’t have to retire then.

As you approach the NRA of 65 we will contact you  by letter, or email if you have given us permission, with a quotation of what we estimate your pension options will be and to send you details of how to go about claiming the benefits.

If you want a quotation of your benefits before then please contact us. 

Your benefits are calculated as if they were payable at age 65, but if you choose to retire earlier they will be reduced for early payment, or uplifted for late payment after age 65.

You can find out more about how early or late retirement pension amounts are calculated here.

Before the age of 55* you cannot retire except on the grounds of ill-health (see below). The conditions for these circumstances are set by HM Revenue and Customs and described below.

The latest age you can retire from this Scheme is 75.

*The government is changing this age. From 6th April 2028, you must be at least 57 before you can take any pension benefits.

From age 55* onwards you have the following retirement options from this Scheme.

• You can take a monthly pension and no lump sum.
   
• You can choose to take a one-off lump sum equivalent to 25% of the "value" of your pension, which will be paid tax-free. (The value of your pension is not the same as your monthly pension income). You must give up some of your monthly pension to do this.
   
• You can choose to take a lump sum of less than 25% if you prefer and so give up less of your monthly pension. 25% is the maximum tax-free cash allowed by HMRC.
   
• You can use Additional Voluntary Contributions and investments in the Consumers' Association Pension Savings Plan towards your benefits - see below.
   
• Your monthly pension is paid for life. The pension will be treated by HM Revenue and Customs in the same way as your salary would be and is subject to income tax, but not National Insurance.

Additional Voluntary Contributions

You may have made Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) to the Scheme whilst contributing to your Hybrid pension and these may have been invested in a number of options:

• Prudential With-profits Fund
• Utmost Life (formerly known as Equitable Life)
• Clerical Medical
• Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM)

Other than those AVCs invested with Prudential, all the money in these AVCs was transferred to the Aviva Master Trust in March 2024, into a new defined contribution pension arrangement called the Consumers' Association Retirement Savings Plan (CARSP - see below).

Once these AVCs were transferred to CARSP they became a distinct investment in your name in the Aviva Master Trust. They are no longer referred to as AVCs in CARSP. These investments have been ring-fenced by Aviva to provide you with the opportunity to transfer them back when you want to retire from this Scheme.

Your options with regards to all of these voluntary investments are as follows.

• Use some or all the money to provide some or all of your pension commencement lump sum, so you give up less of your monthly Scheme pension.
   
• Use some or all the money to buy additional pension in the Scheme, which you may wish to set up to include a pension paid to your dependent beneficiary in the event of your death.
  
  If you invested your AVCs with LGIM, this option only applies to those LGIM AVCs bought while you were contributing to your Hybrid pension. See below regarding LGIM AVCs bought after you switched to the DC Section.
   
• Use the money to take a separate lump sum, 75% of which would be taxable at your highest marginal rate, and 25% of which would be tax-free. You do not have to retire from the Scheme at the same time to do this.
   
• Retire from this Scheme but retain the Prudential AVC and/or CARSP investment to use at a later date as a lump sum or to transfer to other pension arrangements you may have.

You may contact us at any time in order to discuss when and how you might wish to use the money in the Prudential AVC or CARSP for your retirement, or discuss the retirement options available to you in the Scheme.

Consumers' Association Retirement Savings Plan (CARSP)

Special considerations apply to any investments that have been transferred to CARSP, as follows:

• If you switched to the DC Section of the Scheme your DC Pension Account was transferred to CARSP in March 2024. This included any LGIM AVCs made while a contributing member of the DC Section. These investments are not ring-fenced as described above.
  
  Instead, money from these investments can be transferred back to the Scheme to provide some or all of your pension commencement lump sum, but they cannot be used to buy additional pension in the Scheme.
   
• If you are still contributing to the Which? pension arrangement, you may transfer other pensions into CARSP, but these funds would not be added to your ring-fenced funds. Nor can you add your regular contributions to these ring-fenced funds.
   
• After retirement from the Scheme you are no longer able to transfer back the ring-fenced funds from CARSP for any benefits in the Scheme.
   
• You may take your CARSP investments separately from your Scheme pension by arranging this directly with Aviva.  

For questions about how your CARSP funds are invested and the benefits they offer outside of this Scheme, please contact Aviva using the policy and reference numbers you were given upon the transfer of your AVCs.

To find out more about the Aviva Master Trust and CARSP click here.

How the Retirement Process works

As you approach the NRA of 65, we will contact you either by letter, or email if you have given us permission, with a quotation of what we estimate your pension options will be and send you details of how to go about claiming the benefits.

However you can request a Retirement Quote, and a Cash Equivalent Transfer Value Quote (CETV - see below) for a comparison, at any time to help you decide when to retire and how to take the benefits. CETV quotations are guaranteed for three months, but retirement figures can only be guaranteed in the month of your retirement.

If you’d like a quotation for either, please contact us.

When you receive your quotation, there will be

1. one or two option forms,
2. a death benefits nomination form,
3. a form for your payment bank details.

If you decide you want to take the pension (or lump sum and reduced pension), complete these forms, arrange the required proof of identity, then contact us  - we will provide you with a secure method to send all these items to us.

If you have an Aviva Master Trust (CARSP) investment you wish to transfer back to the Scheme as part of your retirement, we request these funds from Aviva on your behalf.

We will relay to you the paperwork that Aviva sends to us, for you to complete in order to authorise Aviva to make the transfer. Once we have everything required from yourself and Aviva, we will recalculate your benefits using the final figures, ready to set up your Scheme pension and lump sum.

Once set up your Scheme pension and lump sum are paid directly into the bank account you provide details for, by the Which? Payroll team, on behalf of the Scheme.

Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV)

At any age you may transfer the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value of your benefits to another registered pension arrangement. This might enable you to take all your benefits as a lump sum, or to consolidate them with other pension scheme(s) for a drawdown arrangement, which are two options not available directly from this Scheme.

You can find out more about how to transfer out your pension to another arrangement here.

What if I move Abroad?

Pensions can be paid to any bank account with a UK branch via BACs. If you don’t have a UK bank account, pensions can still be paid to overseas banks via Moneycorp. We will still need proof that the account is on your name and will need an email address. 

Pension Wise Guidance

Your Trustees urge you to seek independent financial advice when planning for your retirement.

If you are considering transferring benefits into the Scheme as part of your retirement or if you have multiple benefits in different arrangements, the Pensions Regulator requires you to gain advice from a registered independent financial adviser (IFA) before they will allow us to accept a transfer.

With so many options, including those you might have in other pension arrangements, it can be hard to decide what is best for you in your own circumstances, so the Pensions Regulator wants pension schemes to help members obtain free impartial advice about their money purchase pensions and any defined contribution benefit options such as AVCs.

If your benefit from this Scheme is a Money Purchase Pension at the point of retirement (you can find out about the two different types of Scheme pension here), or if you decide to take your Prudential AVCs outside of the Scheme, the Pensions Regulator asks us to

1. point you towards guidance from Pension Wise,
2. offer to make you an appointment with them on your behalf,
3. and obtain confirmation from you that you either have had an appointment, or that you have opted out of guidance.

We can make an appointment for you, or you can book an appointment online at:

www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-wise/pension-wise-customers

or by calling 0800 138 3944 for free – lines are open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm

You can decline to take this guidance if you wish, but we will need to have your decision to opt out in writing before we can proceed with the payment of a Money Purchase Pension or Prudential AVCs as either an UFPLS or a transfer to another provider.

A transfer from this Scheme is necessary if you want to take the benefits as a drawdown or to purchase an annuity on the open market.

You may be exempt from this requirement if you

• have taken advice from an IFA or had Pension Wise guidance in the last 12 months,
• are taking a serious ill-health lump sum,
• or are transferring your benefits without taking a lump sum.

Ill-Health Early Retirement

Subject to the Trustees taking independent medical advice from a qualified medical practitioner and being satisfied that your physical or mental incapacity is serious enough:-

1. to prevent you from following your normal occupation,
2. and to seriously impair your earning ability, and
3. and that you are unlikely to recover,

then the Trustees may pay your Pension before the minimum age allowed by legislation, which is currently 55*.

If you have received a terminal diagnosis from a qualified medical practitioner, your pension could instead be commuted for a serious ill-health lump sum equivalent to a CETV, so please do contact us at any time if you think you might qualify for either a pension or lump sum.

*The government is changing this age. From 6th April 2028, you must be at least 57 before you can take any pension benefits.