A significant number of employees have been found to have not nominated a beneficiary for their pension or life assurance in the event of their death. The following notices about pensions and life assurance were sent to all UK employees recently. If you missed them, please read them below.
Pensions
As your employer we provide an Aviva pension scheme that helps you save and plan for your retirement. Ideal Standard is committed to ensuring that the scheme is well managed and we work with external advisors to monitor how the scheme is doing against industry benchmarks.
It is important that you have access to the information regarding your pension so it can be updated as circumstances change. This time last year we ran sessions to help people understand their pensions and the importance of having accurate data on file.
Since then, it has been identified that only 11% of employees who are members of the pension scheme have nominated a beneficiary on their accounts. This is an important piece of information that we would require to identify who should receive any benefits due from the scheme in the event of an employee’s death. The pension scheme is separate from the life assurance scheme so even if you have listed beneficiaries under the life assurance scheme, you should also ensure that you list beneficiaries for the pension.
It is simple to complete. All you need to do is log in to your Aviva account and complete the data. You can access your pension account online via www.avivamymoney.co.uk.
If you cannot log on, please contact Aviva on 0345 604 9915 who will be happy to support any queries.
Life Assurance
All permanent Ideal Standard employees for the UK are automatically enrolled in the life assurance scheme as long as they meet the criteria (guide on the Busy Bees Platform).
Life assurance is provided by Canada Life, however the level of benefit is linked to membership of the pension scheme in that where an employee is a member of the pension scheme, the life assurance benefit in the event of that employee’s death is the amount equal to five times the scheme salary. If the employee is not a member of the pension scheme, the benefit is only one times the scheme salary. Scheme salary is the “pensionable salary” – basic annual salary on which pension contributions are based on.
We do need to ensure we have an updated life assurance “expression of wish” form on your file. The form is available to access and complete through the Busy Bees platform under “Benefits Summary”. Click on Group Life Assurance.
Once completed, the signed form needs to be returned to the HR Team either as a hard copy or by email to HREnquiries@idealstandard.com and we will ensure this is retained on your file. We must stress that this is an important piece of information that we would require to identify who should receive any benefits due from the scheme in the event of an employee’s death.