About the figures in your 2025 statement

Why is the value of my future pension from my DC account different from the value shown in my 2024 statement?

We've shown you the benefits you might be able to get from your deferred DC account by assuming that you'll convert it to a pension with an external provider, usually an insurance company. This kind of product is also known as an annuity. It's important to remember that the cost of buying an annuity varies and is likely to change each year. You don't have to take your DC savings account as an annuity, though.

Find out more about how you can take your DC savings at retirement

When we work out the amount of pension you could buy with your DC account, we base our calculations on several things. These include:

• How much we expect your DC account to be worth at your target retirement age, which is based on factors like:
• when you expect to retire,
• the savings you built up in your DC account while you were an active member of the Fund, and
• future investment returns on your savings.
• How much we expect it to cost you to buy an annuity using the value of your DC account that will guarantee you an income for the rest of your life.

How do I access my DC savings when I retire?

In your benefit statement, we've converted the projected value of your DC account when you retire into a pension. If you decide you'd like to access your DC account in this way, you'll need to transfer it to an external annuity provider and buy an annuity product from them.

But there are different ways to access your DC account when you retire. For example, you could choose an income drawdown arrangement instead. Again, you'd need to transfer your DC account to an external provider that offers drawdown products to do this.

Find out more about how you can take your DC savings at retirement

Why are my statutory money purchase illustration (SMPI) figures different to my pension statement figures?

If you had a DC account balance at 31 March 2025, by law we must provide you with an SMPI as well as your pension statement. You can find your SMPI on page 5 of your deferred pension statement.

Our specialist advisers have calculated the figures on page 3 of your pension statement with the aim of giving you a more realistic idea of how much pension you could receive. They use different, more up-to-date assumptions than the industry-standard assumptions the government requires us to use to calculate your SMPI.

What's the difference between the assumptions you use to calculate the projections in my realistic and SMPI statements?

The assumptions we use to calculate your SMPI projections are different to the ones we use to calculate your 'realistic' ones. In your SMPI statement, we've had to assume that the pension you buy when you retire won't increase with inflation every year, and that your annuity policy ceases when you die - in other words, it won't provide a spouse's pension if you die before your spouse or partner.

The rates for buying an annuity that doesn't increase with inflation or include a spouse's pension are lower than the rates for one which does - this means that when we calculate the pension you could receive using the SMPI assumptions, we estimate you'd be able to buy more pension with your DC savings. This is why your SMPI projections might show a higher estimated annual pension than the one we show in your 'realistic' statement.

The 'realistic' assumptions we use to calculate the figures in your pension statement on page 3 still assume that you'll buy an annuity that will provide a spouse's pension and that will increase every year to help it keep up with inflation when you retire. As these features 'cost' more to buy as part of an annuity, the estimated pension we show in your pension using our more 'realistic' assumption may be lower than your SMPI projection.

SMPI assumptions also assume different investment returns than the ones we use in your 'realistic' statement. When calculating your 'realistic' projections, we've also assumed that inflation is capped at 3%.

Assumptions

You can find out more about the assumptions we used to estimate the figures on page 3 of your statement in the assumptions document we sent with it.

Still have questions?

The Pensions Team will be happy to help - you can get in touch using these contact details: