If you are retiring on an average pay scheme or a final pay scheme, the exact level of your pension will have been fixed for your retirement date. We will provide further information about your pension coming into payment and the options available to you about eight months before the retirement date. We recommend preparing for your retirement in a timely manner, which is why we have created this information page for you.
It is important that you have an understanding of how much your income will be and how much you will spend after you retire. You should also be aware of how your partner’s financial situation would be affected by your death. We recommend using the Pension Guide Pyramid to properly inform yourself about these types of things. Have you accrued a pension with a.s.r.?
If you have accrued a small pension, for instance, because you only worked for a particular employer for a relatively short period of time, you may be able to commute your pension. This means you will not receive monthly pension benefits when you retire, but instead will receive the value of your pension as a lump sum.
To find out more about commuting a small pension, please visit: commutation of your pension
If your retirement date is approaching, but you do not feel ready to stop working just yet, we have good news for you: most pension schemes allow you to defer your pension for up to five years after reaching the statutory retirement age. To find out more about deferring your pension, please visit: deferring your pension
If you would like to go into full-time retirement in the future, but have accrued several pensions that are set to come into payment at different times, you could choose to merge your different pension pots so that you are able to fully retire when it suits you – for instance, at the statutory retirement age. If this is something you would be interested in doing, please return the form entitled ‘Request retirement date amendment’.
Your pension will come into payment on the retirement date specified in your pension scheme. This pension along with the state pension will comprise your monthly income once you retire. If you have accrued a partner's pension, your partner would receive this partner's pension upon your death. You will receive a letter from us three months before you retire, specifying the level of your pension and the extra options available to you:
Most pension schemes have a standard provision for pension accrual for both yourself and your partner. If you do not have a partner, or if your partner has their own pension scheme, you can choose to convert the partner's pension, or a portion of the partner's pension, into a higher pension for yourself.
If no provision has been made for a partner's pension or if the accrued partner's pension is too low, you can choose to convert a portion of your pension into an additional partner's pension.
You will receive a letter from us three months before your pension comes into payment, specifying the exact pension sum you will receive. This letter will also tell you how to inform us of any decisions you make and will ask for your details so that we can pay out your pension to you.
If we receive your details before your retirement date, you will receive your first pension benefit around the 25th of the month.
You pay tax on the pension you receive. We would like to point out that the amounts specified in our communication with you are gross amounts. The actual pension sum specified on your bank account will therefore be lower as payroll tax and social insurance contributions will be deducted from this sum. We will send you an annual statement for the past year in January, which you can use for your income tax return.
We do not factor in tax credit when deducting tax from your pension. Everyone is entitled to this form of tax relief. However, it may very well be the case that we are not the only provider you are receiving an income from in the form of a state pension or pension. In other words, you may owe the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration money after filing your tax return if other insurers or bodies are factoring in tax credit. If you would like us to apply tax credit to your pension sum, please complete the form entitled Model information statement for tax credit form (Model opgaaf gegevens voor de loonheffingen – in Dutch) and return it to us.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at any time. We are available by telephone on business days from 8.30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on +31 (0)30 257 44 00. Or, if you prefer, you can contact us by using the contact form. We are happy to help in any way we can.