What do most members do with their pension funds at retirement?
As a member of the CSS Pension Plan, you have numerous options for converting your pension funds into a retirement income. Some of your options are available directly from the Pension Plan, while others are from financial institutions and insurance companies.
Most defined contribution (DC) pension plans require retiring members to transfer their pension funds out of the pension plan to a financial institution or insurance company. The CSS Pension Plan is one of the very few DC pension plans in Canada that offers its own retirement income options. In other words, at retirement you don’t have to transfer your pension funds out of the CSS Pension Plan if you don’t want to.
- Traditional monthly pension, which is very similar to life annuities from insurance companies
- Variable Benefit (VB) payment, which is very similar to the Life Income Funds (LIFs) and Prescribed-RRIFs (PRRIFs) from financial institutions
Members approaching retirement often ask the Plan: What do most members do with their pension funds at retirement?
“It’s a really personal decision,” says Fiona May, a CSS Pension Plan Consultant (PPC) who assists members with the decision-making process. “You just need to gather all of the information and make a decision about your pension funds that works best for you.”
But, if you really want to know what most members do, recent statistics show that on average two out of every three retiring members choose to receive their retirement income directly from the CSS Pension Plan. In other words, only a third of the retiring members transfer their pension funds out of the Plan.