Your annual pension and benefit choices
What choices you can make with your Unilever Benefits Envelope, what you need to do and when you need to do it
What choices you can make
Every year, in July and August, you get to choose how to use your Benefits Envelope. You can decide how much you’d like to save into your Unilever pension, and if you’d like to take some as extra taxable pay.
You can also use your pay to buy other benefits like extra life cover or serious-ill health cover.
We call this period Annual Renewal. You have a few different choices you can make during Annual Renewal.
Have you recently joined Unilever?
You’ll get an email from the Unilever Reward team in your first 2 weeks. This will tell you when you need to make your choices by. Read about the choices you can make if you've recently joined Unilever.
See how other Unilever employees use their Benefits Envelope
Four Unilever employees share how they use their Benefits Envelope – and how it helps them.
Download video transcript (DOCX, 23.8KB)
Want to see how you can use your Benefits Envelope? Sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com
If you've previously stopped saving into the DB Career Average Plan
You may not be able to build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan if you've previously stopped saving into it.
To check if you can build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan, sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com. Then select ‘Your choices’ on the homepage, and then 'DB Career Average Plan’.
Buy extra protection in case you get seriously ill and can’t work
If you become so ill that you can never work again, voluntary serious ill-health cover pays a cash amount into your DC Investing Plan pot to replace the pension savings you would have built up if you were still working.
This is in addition to any DB Career Average Plan pension you’ve also built up, and Final Salary Plan pension if you have it.
Not everybody is eligible for voluntary serious ill-health cover. To find out if you’re eligible and see how this benefit works, sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com. Select ‘Your choices’ on the homepage, and then select ‘Serious-ill health cover’.
Top up your pension from your pay
You can put more money into your pension by making extra voluntary contributions (EVCs) from your pay.
Some changes, like topping up your pension by making EVCs, can be done at any time of the year. See the full list of changes you can make to your pension throughout the year on Manage your pension.
See how your choices affect your pension and take-home pay
You can see how different choices impact your pension and take-home pay on Unilever Benefit Choices.
When you make your choices
You make your choices in July and August.
We'll send you an email to let you know when it’s time to review your choices and when you need to submit your choices by.
Your new choices will then come into effect on 1st October.
If you've recently joined Unilever, your timeline is different
We’ll send you an email in your first 2 weeks. This will tell you when you need to make your first choices.
Or you can sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com to see your deadline.
How to submit your choices
First, sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com to see how your choices impact your pension and take-home pay.
Then, when you’ve decided what choices are best for you, you can submit your final choices on MyReward.
Why your choices matter
Everyone's situation is different, and what's right for you depends on things like how close you are to retirement, whether you need more take-home pay now, and how much you've already saved. That's why it's worth taking time each year to review your choices.
By law, if you are saving into a workplace pension, your employer is only required to contribute a minimum of 3%. At Unilever, your Benefits Envelope is worth 25% of your pensionable earnings on top of your pay. Actively choosing how to use it means you're making the most of what's available to you.
What happens if you don't make any choices
If you don’t make a choice this year, you’ll get the previous choice you made.
If you haven’t made a choice before, 15% of your pensionable earnings will go into your pension, and you'll get the rest as extra taxable pay. This will continue until you change it.
Everyone’s situation is different so this may not be right for you. Sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com to check whether you should update your pension and benefit choices.
If you previously chose not to save into your pension
If you stopped building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan, you may have a limited number of opportunities to rejoin (and you will not be able to build up DB pension in the future). It’s important to check how this could impact you.
To see if you can rejoin DB this year, sign in to unileverbenefitchoices.com Then select ‘Your choices’ on the homepage, and then 'DB Career Average Plan’.
If you have opted out of the DC Investing Plan pension in the past, you will be automatically re-enrolled back into the DC Investing Plan within 3 years. The law says we have to do this.
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