Take care of your partner in the event of your death | Disability pensions under the new pension rules | Questions and answers
If you’re like Tamar: below the age of 40 and accruing a pension with us
- A personal pension capital: the contributions that Tamar and her employer pay every month will go directly into her personal pension capital, without a portion being used to finance the pensions of older colleagues. This is good for Tamar, who’ll accrue most of her pension under the new pension plan. It makes the pension plan more personal, but it also means less solidarity. When Tamar retires, we’ll calculate how much pension she will receive from her personal pension capital.
- Investing with a relatively high risk: that personal pension capital will be invested. Tamar still has a long way to go until she retires, so until she reaches a certain age we’ll take relatively high risks with her investments. For her generation, this often means that their projected pension will be higher than under the existing pension plan, and if the economy performs very well it could shoot up. However, Tamar shouldn’t make any assumptions. If the economy goes badly, she might have quite a bit less pension – perhaps even less than under the existing pension plan. Until she retires, no protections are in place to prevent her pension from losing value, so it’s important for Tamar to keep an eye on how her pension is doing.
- Individual choices: Tamar doesn’t have the option of making individual choices about the investment policy. If she wants, however, she can add an extra 4% to her pension contributions. Another option for active members with an income of more than €87,500 is to lower their contributions (permanently or temporarily) on their salary above that amount. This will give them more income now, but less pension when they retire.
Take care of your partner in the event of your death
- In the new pension scheme, your partner and children will receive a pension from Philips Pensioenfonds in the event of your death
- In the new pension scheme, your partner and children will receive a pension from Philips Pensioenfonds in the event of your death
- The survivor's and orphan's pension that you have accrued on 1 January 2027 will continue to exist. Your partner and children will receive this in addition to the risk coverage in the event of your death before your retirement date.
- Are you leaving employment? Then you will automatically remain insured for another 3 months (or longer if you are receiving a ZW- of WW-benefit). After that, you can voluntarily continue the risk coverage as long as you do not (yet) have a new employer.
- Are you retiring? Then you choose how much survivor's pension you want for your (possible) partner and children in the event of your death after your retirement. This is financed from your personal pension capital.
Disability pensions under the new pension rules
- If you are unable to work due to disability, Philips Pensioenfonds will continue to pay pension premiums. As is the case now, there is also a disability pension scheme that provides a supplement to the WIA benefit of up to 75% of the salary (in the event of full disability).
Questions & answers
for members below the age of 40
In the solidarity based contribution plan you cannot make your own investment choices. Even though you will have your own pension capital, that capital will still be invested collectively, just as in the present set-up. In other words, the pension fund will invest the total pension capital of all its members together. You will not have the option to choose how it is invested.
The reason that you will soon not be able to make your own investment choices is the choice of the social partners for the solidarity-based contribution plan. The solidarity-based contribution plan does not allow your own investment choices. The pension assets are still invested collectively, but the return is age-dependent. If you had chosen the other variant, the flexible contribution plan, you would have been able to make your own investment choices within certain limits.
That is correct. Under the new system, you will have a personal pension capital that is invested. The value of your pension capital will fluctuate over time. You will be able to see how much pension capital you have at a particular moment. You will also be able to see what developments have affected it, either increasing its value (contributions and investment gains, for example) or decreasing its value (such as benefits that you have drawn or investment losses).
How much pension you can draw from your pension capital after you retire will not be predetermined: instead, it will depend on factors such as future investment yields and the interest rates when you retire. Those yields will depend on your age: while you are young, more of your pension capital will be invested in equities (shares) and its value will fluctuate more strongly than when you are older and it is invested more conservatively.
When the new system is introduced, your pension will also be affected more strongly by economic fluctuations: it will be more likely to go up in times of prosperity, but also more likely to go down when the economy is struggling. We will try to prevent a decrease in pension benefits as much as possible.
With regard to the increase in your pension: in the current pension system, this is always done through indexation. In new pension system your pension will not be indexed in the way that it is now. Whether your pension goes up depends on the amount of your personal pension assets. And also besides the investment return, the projection return will be determining the yearly adjustment of the benefit. More information about the projection return can be found on our Question and Answers page under the question: 'Is the calculation interest rate in the new pension system no longer important at all?'.
Under the new pension plan, younger members will not be paying towards the pension accrual of older members. Instead, more of their contributions will go into their own personal pension capital. This means that the new plan works to the advantage of younger members: for much of their career, their contributions will go into their own pension savings where they will generate returns. However, members aged 40 and up will not have enough time to benefit from the new pension accrual method under the new pension plan. The compensation is intended for those members. They need the compensation because without it their pension is projected to be lower under the new plan.
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New rules for pensions
On this central page you will find information about what you can expect in the years to come.
New pension rules
Want to know more about the survivor’s pension?
Check out our survivor’s pension questions and answers.
Go to Q&A