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DB Career Average Plan
The DB Career Average Plan closed to new members on 30 September 2021.
The DB Career Average Plan gives you a predictable, secure income for life when you retire and protects you if you become too ill to work.
It also gives any eligible partner or eligible dependants an income when you die.
Most members can build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan for up to 40 years. Any pension you built up in the Final Salary Plan counts towards this. When you’ve built up 40 years of pension, you can choose to continue to build up an extra 5 years.
Income from the DB Career Average Plan is based on:
- How long you’ve been building up DB Career Average Plan pension
- When you built up DB Career Average Plan pension
- Your pensionable earnings (your basic pay and, for some people, other allowances)
- How early you retire (before age 65)
- How your DB Career Average Plan pension is revalued (increases every year) to help keep up with the rising cost of living (inflation)
How your pension builds up
The DB Career Average Plan built up differently:
- Between 1 January 2008 and 30 September 2021
- After 1 October 2021
Between 1 January 2008 and 30 September 2021
For every year that you were a member of the DB Career Average Plan between 1 January 2008 and 30 September 2021 you built up £1 of pension for every £60 of your pensionable earnings. Only pensionable earnings between a lower and an upper level counted towards the pension you built up.
After 1 October 2021
Every year that you’re a member, you build up £1 of pension for every £80 of your pensionable earnings.
Only your pensionable earnings up to an upper level count towards your DB Career Average Plan pension. This upper level goes up every year in line with inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). From 1 October 2023, the upper level is £52,270 for full-time employees.
If you work part time we work out your part-time equivalent based on how many hours you work and how many hours a full time employee works. Then we adjust your upper level in line with this.
If you earned over the upper level, Unilever may have also saved into the DC Investing Plan for you.
When you retire, any pensions you might have from the Final Salary Plan and the DB Career Average Plan are added together. This income will increase every year.
What you pay
To build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan you make a contribution from your pay.
Your contribution will be 5% of your pensionable earnings (your basic pay and, for some people, other allowances).
Only your pensionable earnings up to an upper level count towards your DB Career Average Plan pension. This upper level goes up every year in line with inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Some years you may pay more than this.
If the cost of DB (after you’ve paid your 5% contribution) is bigger than your Benefits Envelope, you pay an extra contribution from your pay. This varies from year to year. We tell you about this during Annual Renewal. Read more about how the cost of DB is taken from your Benefits Envelope on unileverbenefitchoices.com.
What Unilever pays
Unilever pays whatever is needed in addition to your contributions to make sure the Fund has enough money to pay members' benefits now and in the future. The Trustees regularly check if the Fund has enough money and Unilever may change what it is paying following each check.
In years where you do not use all of your Benefits Envelope to save for pension in the DB Career Average Plan, you can use the rest of your Benefits Envelope to save for pension in the DC Investing Plan.
You can instead choose to stop building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan and save for pension in the DC Investing Plan.
If you choose to stop building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan, you’ll have one chance to restart, either at the next Annual Renewal or the one after that. If you stop a second time, you can’t start again.
Your DB Career Average Plan pension increases in a different way to any Final Salary Plan pension you have. Every year the value of the DB Career Average Plan pension that you’ve built up is revalued to help it keep up with the rising cost of living (inflation).
It works like this:
Year 1: You build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan.
Year 2: You build up another year of pension in the DB Career Average Plan. At the end of year 2, the pension you built up in year 1 is increased and then this is added to the pension you built up in year 2.
Any DB Career Average Plan pension you built up:
- Before 30 September 2021 increases every year in line with the Retail Price Index and is capped at 5%
- After 1 October 2021 increases in line with the Consumer Price Index and is capped at 5%
The way your pension increases depends on whether you stopped because you:
- Started saving into the DC Investing Plan from your Benefits Envelope
- Started taking extra taxable pay from your Benefits Envelope
- Were made redundant or the part of the company you worked for was sold
If you started saving into the DC Investing Plan or took extra taxable pay
Your DB Career Average Plan pension increases every year to help it keep up with the rising cost of living (inflation).
Any DB Career Average Plan pension you built up between 1 January 2008 and 30 September 2021 increases in line with the Retail Price Index (RPI) and is capped at 5%.
Any DB Career Average Plan pension you built up after 1 October 2021 increases in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and is capped at 2.5%.
If you were made redundant or the part of the company you worked for was sold
You will not build up any more pension. The pension you have built up will continue to be increased, to help it keep pace with inflation. Currently these increases work in the same way as they did when you were still building up pension. This approach may change, and if it does, these increases will be the same as if you left Unilever voluntarily.
Your pension increases every year on 1 April. Increases follow inflation up to a cap (limit).
Pension you built up from 1 January 2008 to 1 July 2012 follows inflation as measured by the Retail Price Index (RPI) and is capped at 2.5%.
Pension you built up :
- From 1 July 2012 on the 5% member contribution rate is capped at 3%
- From 1 July 2012 on the higher member contribution is capped at 5%
Pension you built up from 1 October 2021 is linked to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), up to a cap (limit) of 3%
View your retirement options
Stopping building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan
You can stop building up benefits in the DB Career Average Plan at any time.
Stopping during Annual Renewal
You can use your Benefits Envelope to build up a pot of money in the DC Investing Plan, get extra taxable pay, or choose a mixture of both.
You can opt out of building up benefits in the DB Career Average Plan during Annual Renewal.
Stopping outside of Annual Renewal
The part of your Benefits Envelope that went into the DB Career Average Plan will be provided as extra taxable pay unless you decide to save some or all of it into the DC Investing Plan. If you choose to take extra taxable pay you’ll pay tax and National Insurance on this money, and possibly other deductions.
You’ll have to complete a form and wait until this is accepted before your opt out is confirmed.
When you stop building up DB Career Average Plan pension you will also:
- Stop making any extra voluntary contributions
- Stop using your Benefits Envelope to save into the DC Investing Plan
Restarting your DB Career Average Plan pension
Not all members can restart building up DB Career Average Plan pension once they stop.
If you’ve been continuously building up DB Career Average Plan pension since 30 September 2021 you’ll have one chance to restart building up benefits in the DB Career Average Plan, either at the next Annual Renewal or the one after that. If you stop a second time, you can’t start again.
If you stop building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan, and are not building up pension in the DC Investing Plan, the law says we have to re-enrol you into a pension every 3 years. So we’ll re-enrol you from time to time into the DC Investing Plan. Depending on when you opt out this may be sooner than 3 years. When this happens you can choose to opt out again if you want to.
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DC Investing Plan
You may have savings in the DC Investing Plan if you were a member of the DB Career Average Plan between 1 January 2008 and 30 September 2021 and you earned over the upper level. Or if you made extra voluntary contributions (EVCs) to the DC Investing Plan.
Log in to PlanViewer to check how much pension you’ve built up in the DC Investing Plan.
You can use your Benefits Envelope to save into the DC Investing Plan. Or you can make extra voluntary contributions (EVCs) from your pay.
The DC Investing Plan gives you a pot of money that’s invested to help it grow over time. When you retire, you can use this money to give yourself an income. Or, if you’ve built up pension in the DB Career Average Plan, you can use it to provide some, or all of your tax-free cash.
How your pot builds up
The amount of money you build up depends on:
- How much you save from your Benefits Envelope and from your pay
- How your investments perform
- How long your money is invested for
Because your money's invested, the value of your pension pot can go up or down from day to day, depending on how your investments are doing. This is normal. The aim is that by the time you come to use your money, the value of your pot will be bigger than if you hadn't invested it.
You can choose how to invest your money, or you can choose an automatic switching strategy known as the ‘default’. If you don’t make an investment decision your pot will be invested in the default. This option moves your money into lower risk investments when you get closer to retirement. The Trustees and their investment advisers believe that this option works best for most members.
What you and Unilever pay
You can save into the DC Investing Plan from your Benefits Envelope. So Unilever pays these contributions.
How much you can save into the DC Investing Plan depends on if you are using your Benefits Envelope to build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan, or not.
If you are not building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan
The smallest amount you can save into the DC Investing Plan is 11% of your pensionable earnings (your basic pay and, for some people, other allowances).
The most you can save is 25% of your pensionable earnings. If you want to save more, you can make extra voluntary contributions from your pay.
If you do not use all of your Benefits Envelope to save into the DC Investing Plan you’ll get what’s left over as extra taxable pay.
If you are building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan
Some years you may have some Benefits Envelope left over. In these years you can use the rest of your Benefits Envelope to save for pension in the DC Investing Plan. When you do this it must be at least £20 a month (£240 a year).
If you do not use all of your Benefits Envelope to build up pension in the DB Career Average Plan and to save for pension in the DC Investing Plan you’ll get what’s left over as extra taxable pay.
Opting out of the DC Investing Plan
You can stop saving into the DC Investing Plan and take all of your Benefits Envelope as extra taxable pay. You’ll pay tax and National Insurance on this money, and possibly other deductions.
You can opt out during Annual Renewal.
You can also opt-out at any other time by completing the opt out form:
You need to wait a month after opting out before you can opt back in again.
If you opt out of the DC Investing Plan, and you aren’t building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan either, the law says we have to re-enrol you every 3 years. So we’ll re-enrol you from time to time. Depending on when you opt out this may be sooner than 3 years. When this happens you can opt out again if you want to.
Final Salary Plan
The Final Salary Plan closed to new members on 1 January 2008 and to everyone on 30 June 2012.
If you were building up pension in the Final Salary Plan when it closed in 2012, you were given a one-off chance to switch to the DB Career Average Plan.
From 1 July 2012 members of the Final Salary Plan started building up pension in the DB Career Average Plan.
The Final Salary Plan gives you a predictable, secure income for life when you retire and protects you if you become too ill to work.
It also gives your eligible partner and dependants an income when you die.
Most members could build up pension in the Final Salary Plan for up to 40 years.
Income from the Final Salary Plan is based on:
- How long you built up benefits in the Final Salary Plan
- Your pensionable earnings while you were working
- How early you retire (before the age of 65)
- Any service credits that you were given or bought
When you retire, your pensions from the Final Salary Plan and the DB Career Average Plan are added together. This income will increase every year.
How your pension built up
For every year that you were a member of the Final Salary Plan you built up £1 of pension for every £60 of your final pensionable earnings.
We reduce your Final Salary Plan pension based on any salary that you didn’t pay National Insurance contributions on (known as the Lower Earnings Limit). Your Final Salary Plan pension is reduced by £1 for every £80 of salary under the Lower Earnings Limit for every year that you were a member.
If you work part time, or have worked part time in the past, we work out your total pension based on what your pensionable earnings would have been if you worked full time. Then we reduce your Final Salary Plan pension based on how many hours you worked.
Pension increases
Your Final Salary Plan pension increases every year to help it keep up with the rising cost of living (inflation). How much it increases by depends on whether you:
- Are still building up DB Career Average Plan pension
- Have stopped building up DB Career Average Plan pension
- Have already retired
If you’ve built up pension in the DB Career Average Plan continuously since June 2012, your Final Salary Plan pension is based on the lower of:
- Your current pensionable earnings
- Your pensionable earnings on 30 July 2012 increased by 3% every July since then
If you have not been a member of the DB Career Average Plan continuously since June 2012, your Final Salary Plan pension is based on the lower of:
- Your final pensionable earnings at the date you stopped building up DB Career Average Plan pension and
- Your pensionable earnings on 30 July 2012, increased by 3% every July until you stopped building up DB Career Average Plan
When you stop building up DB Career Average Plan pension, or when you turn 65 if that's sooner, we do one final check to see if your pension should be increased again. To do this we check your DB Career Average Plan pension against your Final Salary Plan pension on 30 June 2012.
Your Final Salary Plan pension is based on pensionable earnings on the date you stopped building up DB Career Average Plan pension.
If you stop building up DB Career Average Plan pension, your Final Salary Plan pension stops being linked to your salary.
It then increases in line with inflation as measured by the Retail Price Index (RPI) up to a cap (limit) of 5% every year. We check these increases against the current statutory requirements to see if your pension should be increased further.
When you retire
Your Final Salary Plan pension increases every year on 1 April. Increases follow inflation as measured by the Retail Price Index (RPI), up to a cap (limit).
Pension you built up:
- Before 1 January 2008 is capped at 5%
- From 1 January 2008 to 30 June 2012 on the 7% contribution rate is capped at 3%
- From 1 January 2008 to 30 June 2012 on the 8.5% contribution rate is capped at 5%
You may also have made extra voluntary contributions into the DC Investing Plan while building up Final Salary Plan pension. You may also have made additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) with Zurich, Standard Life, Prudential or Utmost. When you retire you can use these to provide a pension from the Unilever Fund, a pension from an insurance company or a cash sum. We’ll tell you about these in your retirement pack.
When you retire you can use these to provide a pension from the Unilever Fund, a pension from an insurance company or a cash sum. We’ll tell you these in your retirement pack.
Find out more about your options when you retire.