Help and support
FAQs for Members
Pension basics FAQs
If you haven’t accessed your benefit statement before you’ll need to set up your benefit statement account.
- Go to statements.nowpensions.com
- Enter your user ID <xxxxxx> and your temporary password. This is your National Insurance number, which you can find on your payslip. It’s in the following format: QQ123456C.
- You’ll be prompted to re-enter the user ID and your temporary password. You’ll then be asked to create a new password. This should have at least eight characters, including a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and a special character such as !, ?, @, or $.
- When you’ve done this, the website will return to the login page. You’ll need to log in again with your new password. In future, you’ll only need your user ID and new password to log in.
If you’ve already set up your benefit statement account, please do the following:
- Go to: statements.nowpensions.com and enter your user ID <xxxxxx> and password. Remember, your password is case-sensitive. If you’ve forgotten your password, go to ‘Click reset forgotten password’ and set up a new one.
- Go to the ‘Menu’ button, then ‘New Document’. Select ‘View’ to open and read your benefit statement.
Starting 10 years before your target retirement age – the age you’ve told us you want to retire at – we gradually switch most of your pension savings to our Retirement Countdown Fund. This fund aims to protect the value of your pension savings, reducing the risk of them falling in value when you’re due to turn them into retirement benefits.
This is an investment approach known as lifestyling. It’s designed to:
- grow your pension savings over most of your working life, then
- protect the value of those built-up pension savings as you approach your planned retirement age.
We call this switch from growth to protection investments your ‘lifecycle’.
The lifecycle is designed to protect your pension savings from ups and downs as you approach your planned retirement age. It’s automatic – you don’t have to make any decisions or take any action yourself. We move your savings gradually to protect against them all being moved if markets are low.
The timing of the investment switching may not be appropriate if you want to take your benefits before or after your planned retirement age. So, it’s important that you keep us updated if your planned retirement date changes. Unless you tell us otherwise, we assume your planned retirement date is your State Pension age
We explain this in more detail in our Member Booklet.
You can find out more about our investment strategy in our Statement of Investment Principles.
If you’ve been working for a while, you may not remember whether you had a pension with all your previous employers. It’s worth checking to see whether you have any forgotten funds that you could add to your pension savings.
You can contact the Pension Tracing Service or the MoneyHelper service for free guidance on tracking down lost pensions. Both services are independent and run by the government. They can also signpost you to independent financial advisers in your area.
NOW: Pensions, like all pension providers, is not allowed to give you advice about your pension. If you want to find out more about how your pension works and your options for retirement, the following organisations offer free, impartial information and guidance about pension savings.
- MoneyHelper can help with questions about workplace, State or personal pensions. Visit moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement or call 0800 011 3797.
- Pension Wise offers guidance about your options for retirement. Visit moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-wise. If you’re over 50 you can book a phone or face-to-face appointment by calling 0800 138 3944.
- Citizens Advice has information about all types of pension. Visit citizensadvice.org.uk or call 03444 111 444 for a face-to-face appointment.
Financial advice
The organisations we’ve listed here don’t give independent financial advice – specific advice tailored to you which recommends what you should do. You can only get this kind of advice from a regulated independent financial adviser. You’ll have to pay for independent financial advice and it can seem expensive, but it could be money well spent if it gives you a better retirement income.
Help with finding independent financial advice
The MoneyHelper service has information about choosing independent financial advisers and a directory of independent financial advisers that specialise in retirement. Visit moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/taking-your-pension/find-a-retirement-adviser or call 0800 138 7777.
The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has a What we do for the public section that also includes a directory you can search by postcode and filter to find independent financial advisers that specialise in retirement planning. Visit thepfs.org/about-us/what-we-do/for-the-public/
You’ll need to check the qualifications of any independent financial adviser you’re thinking of using. They must be qualified to Level 4 (or above) of the Qualifications and Credit Framework and have an up-to-date Statement of Professional Standing. You should also check whether they are on the official register of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which regulates independent financial advisers in the UK. You’ll find this at fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register.
The information here is general. It doesn’t constitute financial or professional advice, nor does it take your specific circumstances into account. We recommend you take independent financial advice before making any decision which could affect your pension. We do not accept liability for any loss or damage arising out of you using, or relying on, this information.
Yes, your employer is legally obliged to enrol you, but you can opt out again. Remember, if you do, you won’t receive your employer’s contributions as you build up your pension savings. See the Stopping contributions FAQ section for more about this.
Your employer can postpone auto enrolling you into their workplace pension scheme for up to three months after you first qualify. If they decide to do this, we’ll write to tell you that your auto enrolment has been postponed until your deferral date. This is the date when you’ll be auto enrolled if you qualify.
If you want to join the Scheme before your deferral date, you can ask your employer to put you in. This is called opting in.
It’s possible you didn’t meet the conditions for auto enrolment before. For example, you might not have been earning the right amount to qualify.
Or, your employer might have postponed assessing you for auto enrolment. They’re allowed to do this for up to three months after you first qualify. After that they must enrol you immediately if you qualify. If you think you should have been enrolled sooner, you should raise this with your employer, see How does postponement for auto enrolment work?
If you’re in the Scheme, nothing will change. You can carry on contributing to your pension savings and your employer will carry on contributing too, until you decide to start taking your retirement benefits (or transfer out).
If you’re not in the Scheme, you can ask to join until you reach age 74, as long as you’re an entitled or non-eligible jobholder. See Who is an entitled jobholder? and Who is an eligible jobholder?
In every pay period, your employer will check whether you meet the conditions for auto enrolment. They will assess whether you are:
- aged between 22 and State Pension age
- earning £10,000 a year (£833 a month or £192 a week), or more.
If you meet the conditions, your employer will immediately put you into the Scheme. You’ll start paying contributions and so will your employer. You’ll get a welcome letter confirming you’ve been auto enrolled and explaining how to log in to your account in the Gateway member website.
You’re an entitled jobholder if you’re:
- aged between 16 and 74
- working in the UK
- earning £6,240 or less a year.
You won’t be auto enrolled but you can ask your employer to put you into the Scheme.
Who qualifies to be auto enrolled?
You’ll be auto enrolled if you’re aged between 22 and State Pension age, and earn at least £10,000 a year in a single job.
Can I still be enrolled even if I don’t qualify?
Yes. As long as you’re aged between 16 and 74, you can ask to join your workplace pension scheme. Your employer must put you into the Scheme and make contributions for you.
You’re a non-eligible jobholder if you’re:
- aged 16-21, or between State Pension age and 74
- working in the UK
- earning £6,240-£10,000 a year.
You won’t be auto enrolled but you can ask your employer to put you into the Scheme. In our Scheme, your employer must contribute to your pension savings, even if you wouldn’t normally qualify for employer contributions.
As long as you’re a ‘non-eligible’ or ‘entitled’ jobholder, you can ask your employer to put you into the Scheme. In our Scheme, your employer must contribute to your pension savings, even if you wouldn’t normally qualify for employer contributions.
You qualify to be auto enrolled if you’re:
- aged between 22 and State Pension age
- working in the UK
- earning £10,000 a year (£833 a month or £192 a week), or more, in a single job.
This makes you an ‘eligible jobholder’.
- Your employer will put you into the Scheme as soon as you become eligible to be auto enrolled.
- If you qualify when you join your employer, you’ll be auto enrolled immediately. See Who qualifies to be auto enrolled into a workplace pension?
- Contributions to your pension savings in the Scheme will automatically come out of your pay from the first payroll date after you qualify.
- Your employer contributes from the same date.
- If you pay tax, you get tax relief on your pension contributions.
- Your pension savings are invested to help them grow.
- You can access the pensions savings you have grown with the Scheme at any time from age 55 onwards to provide retirement benefits.
You’ll be able to manage your Scheme membership and monitor your pension savings and online through your own Gateway account. You’ll get a new member account email with details of how to log in.
If you have been enrolled, you always have the option to opt out of the Scheme. You’ll receive an enrolment letter (usually via email) explaining how to do this. But, if you opt out, you won’t build up any pension savings with your employer’s help. See the Stopping contribution FAQs section for more about this.
Auto enrolment was introduced after the UK government found many people had very small, or no, pension savings other than the State Pension.
It’s designed to make sure more people save for their retirement with their employer’s help.
Auto enrolment is a UK government initiative to help more people save for their retirement in a workplace pension scheme, with their employer’s help.
Your employer must offer a pension scheme and contribute towards your pension savings. Your employer has chosen the now:pensions Trust (the ‘Scheme’) as your workplace pension scheme.
You’re automatically included in the Scheme as long as you qualify. See Who qualifies to be auto enrolled into a workplace pension?
Our member booklet will help you understand your workplace pension and the importance of saving for your retirement.
It also explains where your money is invested, how tax relief on your pension contributions works, the charges we make, how to transfer pension savings in, and what you can do with your money when you retire.
Additional information
- Our Statement of Investment Principles (SIP) sets out details of our investment policy and approach to responsible investing.
The lifetime allowance was the maximum that could be paid out from all your pensions (except your State Pension) before you had to pay extra tax. This was the allowance for retirement and death benefits that could benefit from tax relief between 6 April 2006 and 5 April 2024. It was abolished on 6 April 2024.
The lifetime allowance was replaced it with two new allowances.
- The lump sum allowance is the maximum amount you can receive tax-free from all your pensions when you retire. For most people, the allowance is £268,275. If you applied for any HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) protection related to the previous lifetime allowance, explained above, your lump sum allowance may be higher.
- The lump sum and death benefit allowance is the maximum amount that can be paid out tax-free from all your pensions when you retire or die or suffer from serious ill health. For most people, the allowance is £1,073,100. If you applied for any HMRC protection related to the previous lifetime allowance, explained above, your lump sum and death benefit allowance may be higher.
Your pension scheme should tell you when a tax-free payment uses up any of your allowances.
If you start taking money out of your pension savings while you’re still paying in to them, the money purchase annual allowance – currently £10,000 a year – could affect you. This means the total amount you and your workplace can pay into your pension savings and still get tax relief goes down to £10,000 a year.
As a basic guide, this allowance won’t usually apply if you:
- buy an annuity to give you an income for life – either one that increases, or that stays at the same level
- put your pension savings into a drawdown arrangement, but don’t take any income
- turn a small amount of pension savings, worth less than £10,000, into cash.
It could apply if you:
- take some or all your pension savings as cash
- put your pension savings into a drawdown arrangement and start taking income
- buy the kind of annuity where your income could go down as well as up.
You should check how these rules apply to you before you start taking money out of your pension savings.
NOW: Pensions doesn’t offer annuities or drawdown products.
Find out more about the annual allowance for pension contributions.
The annual allowance is the total amount you and your workplace can pay into your pension savings and still get tax relief. For most people, the current annual allowance is £60,000 for the tax year 2024-2025. If you go over this you’ll have to pay tax on the amount over the allowance.
It applies to all the pensions you’re actively saving into, including NOW: Pensions and any personal pensions you have. It doesn’t apply to your State Pension.
You can pay up to the whole of your salary – 100% – into your pension savings and still get tax relief, as long as all the money you and your workplace have paid in is below the annual allowance.
Find out more about the money purchase annual allowance for pension contributions.
You’ve been auto enrolled into your workplace pension scheme. Auto enrolment is a UK government initiative to help more people save for their retirement in a workplace pension scheme, with their employer’s help.
Your employer has chosen the now:pensions Trust (the ‘Scheme’) as your workplace pension scheme.
Here’s a summary of how it works.
- Your employer puts you into the Scheme.
- You pay contributions to build up pension savings.
- Your employer pays contributions too.
- If you pay tax, you get tax relief on your pension contributions.
- Your pension savings are invested to help them grow.
- At any time from age 55 onwards you can use the savings you’ve built up in the Scheme to provide retirement benefits.
You’ll be able to manage your Scheme membership and monitor your pension savings securely through your own online account. You’ll get an email with details of how to log in.
You can opt out of being auto enrolled. Your enrolment email will explain how to do this. But, if you opt out, you won’t build up any pension savings with your employer’s help. See the Stopping Contributions FAQ section for more about this.
NOW: Pensions is authorised and regulated as a master trust pension scheme by The Pensions Regulator. The aim of authorisation is to increase the quality of master trust providers in the UK – leading to better protection for you and your pension savings.
We employ a specialist company known as a custodian, which is responsible for guarding and protecting your money. It holds the money in a ring-fenced account on behalf of the NOW: Pensions Trustee. Our custodian is BNY Mellon, one of the world’s largest custodians with a high credit rating. This ensures your pension savings can’t be accessed or used improperly.
Yes. If you’ve been working for a while, you may have lost track of your pensions with previous employers, or don’t remember whether you had a pension with any of them. It’s worth checking to see whether you have any forgotten pensions you could add to your pension savings.
You can contact the Pension Tracing Service or Money Helper for free guidance on tracking down lost pensions. Both services are independent and run by the government. They can also signpost you to independent financial advisers in your area.
A master trust is a type of defined contribution (DC) pension scheme that lots of different employers take part in. Each employer has its own section. (There are some similar defined benefit (DB) schemes, but they’re not legally master trusts.)
Master trusts are managed by a single trustee that makes decisions on behalf of all the members of the scheme. A trustee is a person or organisation that holds and controls money or assets on behalf of, and for the benefit of, someone else.
Master trusts enable employers and members to benefit from lower running costs (because the costs of services and fees are shared between larger number of employers and members) while still having the strong governance of a trustee.
Our Scheme is a master trust. Our trustee, the now:pensions Trustee Limited, has a board of trustee directors who share responsibility for ensuring the Scheme is always run in the best interests of you, the members.
We have been formally authorised and regulated as a master trust by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) since September 2019.
We’re one of 38 master trusts approved and continuously supervised by TPR to increase the quality of master trust providers in the UK. This means better protection for you and your pension savings. You can see a list of approved master trusts on their website.
In a defined benefit (DB) pension, you build up an amount of pension each year based on:
- part of your salary, and
- the number of years you build up the pension.
It’s fairly easy to estimate how much DB pension you’ll get when you retire. For example:
- your pension builds up at 1/60th of your salary each year
- the salary used to work out the pension is £12,000 a year
- you build up pension for 10 years.
Your DB pension would be: 1/60 x 12,000 x 10 = £2,000 a year.
Different types of DB pension include:
- final salary, where your pension is based on your salary near the date you retire or stop building up the pension, and
- career average, based on your average salary during your working life.
At one time most workplace pensions were DB, but they have increasingly fallen out of favour. They’re high-risk and expensive for employers. Employers are responsible for making sure there’s enough money to pay the promised amount of pensions to the members for the rest of their lives – and people are living longer, so the pensions have to be paid for longer. So the costs keep going up.
As a result, there are very few DB schemes open for building up future benefits. They’re almost all closed and are only promising to pay the benefits built up to the closing date.
In a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme, you build up pension savings that you use to provide an income when you retire. Your pension savings build up based on:
- contributions from you (and your employer if you’re in a workplace scheme), and
- returns on your investments.
Our Scheme is a workplace DC pension.
The value of your pension savings in a DC scheme depends on things like:
- how much has been paid in
- how the money has been invested
- when you decide to take your pension savings.
DC pensions are sometimes known as money purchase pensions.
In a DC pension scheme, even if your employer pays contributions, the amount of money you have at retirement will depend on how much was paid in and how the investments have performed. The amount of pension you receive is not guaranteed, so it is up to you to make sure you’ve got enough money to give you the kind of retirement you want.
This is a pension the government pays you when you reach your State Pension age. You build up State Pension by paying National Insurance contributions or receiving National Insurance credits (paid to carers, jobseekers and people on some family and sickness benefits).
The full new State Pension rate for 2024-2025 is £221.20 a week. You need 35 qualifying years, when you paid full-rate National Insurance contributions or received National Insurance credits, to receive the full State Pension. If you have fewer than 35 qualifying years you’ll get a lower amount of State Pension.
You can apply for a State Pension forecast to see how much your State Pension might be. You can also check your State Pension age.
If your State Pension forecast shows you might not get the full amount, check your National Insurance contribution record. You may be able to pay extra National Insurance contributions to get a higher amount of State Pension.
There’s more information about the State Pension on the government’s gov.uk website.
A personal pension is a pension you buy for your own use. All personal pensions are defined contribution (also known as ‘DC’ – see What types of pension are there?). Stakeholder pensions, which have low charges and a default investment option, can be used as personal pensions. There are also Self-invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs), which offer a wide range of investment choices but tend to have higher charges.
A workplace pension is a pension offered by an employer for employees to build up pension savings. It can be a defined benefit (DB) or defined contribution (DC) pension (see What types of pension are there?).
At the highest level, pension benefits build up in two ways: defined contribution (DC) pensions and defined benefit (DB) pensions.
DB pensions build up based on: a part of your salary, andthe number of years you build up the pension. Over the years your employer builds up a pot of money they use to pay the pension you’ve been promised. See What is a defined benefit pension scheme? | DC pensions build up based on: contributions – from you and your employer, if you’re in a workplace scheme, andreturns on the investments you choose. Over the years you build up a pot of money to use for retirement income. See What is a defined contribution pension scheme? |
Some pension schemes provide both types of benefits. These are known as ‘hybrid’ schemes. |
Then there are workplace pensions, personal pensions and the State Pension.
Yes. These charges are the same for all members, whether you’re:
- an active member contributing to your pension regularly, or
- a deferred member – you’ve stopped contributing but still have pension savings in the Scheme.
We send you an annual benefit statement that explains the value of your pension savings with us, including the costs and charges that apply.
As long as you stay in the Scheme, your employer should continue to pay contributions based on your pensionable earnings before you started your leave.
Your contributions will be based on your actual earnings during your parental leave. For example, if you’re getting statutory maternity or paternity pay, this is what your contributions will be based on.
If you decide to take unpaid leave after your paid parental leave, you don’t have to carry on contributing to the Scheme. Your employer can also stop contributing unless your employment contract says your employer must contribute to your retirement savings while you’re on unpaid leave.
When you return to work you can pay extra contributions to make up for the time you were on unpaid leave if you want to.
Yes – but only if you opt out within one month of being enrolled, or re-enrolled (as your employer’s required to do).
Getting a refund after being enrolled
When you’re enrolled in the Scheme for the first time, we’ll write to tell you. You’ll have one month – or the date we write to you, if this is later – to opt out. Your enrolment letter will tell you the deadline for opting out. Your member account at nowgateway.com will also show how many days you have left to opt out.
If you opt out by the deadline your employer will refund your contributions. If you miss the deadline, they can’t be refunded. They’ll stay invested in the Scheme until you retire, or you transfer them to another pension provider. You can still stop contributions (cease active membership of the Scheme) at any time.
Getting a refund after being re-enrolled
Every three years your employer must check whether there are any eligible employees who aren’t in the Scheme. If they find you’re eligible they’re legally obliged to re-enrol you, even if you opted out within 12 months of being enrolled or re-enrolled.
If you’re re-enrolled, we’ll write to tell you. You’ll have one month – or the date we write to you, if this is later – to opt out. Your re-enrolment letter will tell you the deadline for opting out. Your member account at nowgateway.com will also show how many days you have left to opt out.
Again, your employer will refund any contributions you paid while you were re-enrolled, as long as you opt out by the deadline.
How to opt out
We expect most people will welcome the chance to save for retirement in the Scheme. If you opt out, you’ll miss out on the chance to build up pension savings that your employer contributes to.
We don’t want you to go, but if you’re sure you want to opt out (cease active membership), you can do this using your member account at nowgateway.com. You’ll need your NOW: Pensions contract ID and date of birth to activate your account if you haven’t already done this.
Log in to your account, select your job contract on the dashboard, select ‘Opt out’ and follow the on-screen instructions. You’ll get a letter saying you have successfully opted out of the Scheme.
If you’d prefer to fill in a paper form, please contact us online at contactpensionsadmin.com/nowpensions and ask for a copy of the opt-out form, or email membersupport@nowpensions.com. To help us help you faster, please quote your full name and address, plus your NOW: Pensions contract ID and National Insurance number in the email.
You can also call our member support team on 0330 100 3334 from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. When you contact us, please quote your full name and address, plus your NOW: Pensions contract ID and National Insurance number. We might record your call to help us improve our service to you.
Opting back into the Scheme
You can opt back in at any time simply by asking your employer to put you back into the Scheme, or by using your member account at nowgateway.com. Log in to your account, select your job contract on the dashboard, select ‘Opt in’ and follow the on-screen instructions. You’ll get a letter saying you have successfully opted back into the Scheme.
Again, if you’d prefer to fill in a paper form, contact us using the details above and ask for a copy of the opt-in/request to join form.
To stop contributing – even if you only want to stop for a while – you have to opt out of the Scheme. If you do this, your employer will also stop paying contributions and you’ll stop building up retirement savings.
You can opt out using your member account at nowgateway.com. You’ll need your NOW: Pensions contract ID and date of birth to activate your account if you haven’t already done this.
Log in to your account, select your job contract on the dashboard and select ‘Opt out’ to start the process. You’ll get a confirmation email saying you have successfully opted out of the Scheme.
If you’d prefer to fill in a paper form, please contact us online at contactpensionsadmin.com/nowpensions and ask for a copy of the opt-out form, or email membersupport@nowpensions.com. To help us help you faster, please quote your full name and address, plus your NOW: Pensions contract ID and National Insurance number in the email.
You can also call our member support team on 0330 100 3334 from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. When you contact us, please quote your full name and address, plus your NOW: Pensions contract ID and National Insurance number. We might record your call to help us improve our service to you.
You can restart your contributions at any time by opting back in. Simply ask your employer to put you back into the Scheme. Or, you can opt in using your member account at nowgateway.com. Log in to your account, select your job contract on the dashboard and select ‘Opt in’. We’ll contact you to let you know when you’ve successfully opted into the Scheme.
Again, if you’d prefer to fill in a paper form, contact us using the details above and ask for a copy of the opt-in/request to join form.
Remember to tell your employer so they can restart their contributions to your retirement savings (though they’ll get a notification through our employer website).
Yes. Log in to your online account at nowgateway.com. You’ll need your NOW: Pensions contract ID and date of birth to activate your account if you haven’t already done this. Select your job contract on the dashboard, then follow the link to Additional voluntary contributions to choose how much extra you want to contribute each time you get paid. You must choose AVCs in whole percentages, so the minimum is 1%.
If you want to decrease your AVCs at a later stage, just change the percentage back (but remember, it can’t be less than 1%).
If you want to make a one-off contribution, speak to your employer or payroll department. They can also arrange regular AVCs.
Log in to your online account at nowgateway.com. You’ll need your NOW: Pensions contract ID and date of birth to activate your account if you haven’t already done this. Select your job contract on the dashboard, then follow the link to Additional voluntary contributions to choose how much extra you want to pay. You must choose AVCs in whole percentages, so the minimum is 1%.
If you want to make a one-off contribution, speak to your employer or payroll department.
Yes, you can make additional savings. The more you save for your retirement, the more income you’ll have – so it makes sense to save as much as you can afford.
You make additional savings by paying additional voluntary contributions (AVCs). These are extra contributions you make on top of your standard contributions to build up more retirement savings. You’ll benefit from the same tax relief as your standard contributions.
You can contribute up to 100% of your salary towards your pension savings and still get tax relief, as long as the combined contributions from you and your employer are below the annual allowance. This applies to all the pension schemes you’re actively saving into, including our Scheme and any personal pensions you have.
From 6 April 2023 the allowance increased from £40,000 to £60,000.
The annual allowance could reduce to £10,000 a year if you start taking retirement benefits but also carry on saving into a pension. This reduced annual allowance is called the money purchase annual allowance.
We want to make sure non-taxpayers don’t miss out, so we have our own tax top-up scheme.
If you haven’t paid tax on any of your UK earnings in the 2023-2024 tax year (6 April to 5 April), we promise to top up your pension savings by the amount of tax relief you’ve missed out on for that year.
To apply for your tax top-up, please fill in a claim form by 31 December 2024. You’ll need to give HM Revenue & Customs (HRMC) permission to tell us about your tax situation. You can do this on the claim form.
Our top-up only applies to the 2023-2024 tax year. From tax year 2024-2025, tax top-ups will be dealt with by HMRC.
Net pay
now:pensions operates a net pay scheme. This means pension contributions come out of your pay before income tax is taken off. As a result, if you’re a taxpayer you automatically get full tax relief – you don’t pay any income tax on the money you contribute to your pension.
If you don’t pay tax, you don’t automatically get tax relief, but you can claim your tax relief through our tax top-up scheme.
Other types of tax relief
You may have seen another tax relief arrangement, called a relief at source scheme, in other pensions. In this kind of scheme, if you pay basic-rate tax at 20%, 80% of your pension contributions come out of your take-home pay after income tax has been taken off.
The pension scheme then claims the tax relief from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) each month and pays it back.
HMRC only sends back the basic rate of tax: 20%. Higher or additional-rate taxpayers can claim back the rest of the tax relief from HMRC either by writing to them separately, or through their annual self-assessment tax return.
This depends on what definition of pensionable earnings your employer uses – whether it’s qualifying earnings, basic earnings or total earnings.
Qualifying earnings: all your earnings between a lower and upper limit are included. In 2024-2025 the lower limit is £6,240 and the upper limit is £50,270. The government will review these limits every year. Qualifying earnings include salary, wages, commission, bonuses, overtime, statutory sick pay and statutory parental leave pay (maternity, paternity and adoption pay).
Basic earnings: all your earnings are included except bonuses, commission, overtime and similar payments.
Total earnings: all your earnings including bonuses, commission, overtime and similar payments, are included.
Salary sacrifice is an arrangement where employees agree to reduce their earnings by an amount equal to their pension contributions – so they, and their employers, save on National Insurance contributions. Employers can choose to offer salary sacrifice and not all employers may offer it.
If your employer offers salary sacrifice, you agree to give up (sacrifice) part of your salary equal to your pension contributions. Your employer reduces your salary by this amount then pays it into your retirement savings, along with their contributions.
As you’re receiving a lower salary, you and your employer pay lower National Insurance contributions. As a result, your take-home pay may be a little higher than it would be without salary sacrifice.
If your employer offers a salary sacrifice arrangement, they’ll be able to explain more about how it works.
This depends on how you make your contributions.
- If your contributions come directly from your pay, you do pay National Insurance.
- If you’ve agreed to make contributions through a salary sacrifice arrangement operated by your employer, you don’t pay National Insurance.
Yes. NOW: Pensions operates a net pay scheme, so your contributions come out of your pay before income tax is taken off. So if you’re a taxpayer, you automatically get full tax relief – you don’t pay any income tax on the money you contribute to your pension. However, if you don’t pay any tax you don’t automatically get tax relief.
Although the government is taking steps to address this, NOW: Pensions wants to make sure non-taxpayers don’t miss out, so we have our own tax top-up scheme. If you haven’t paid tax on any of your UK earnings, we promise to top up your pension savings by the amount of tax relief you’ve missed out each tax year.
You can do this at the end of each year. Just fill in our tax top-up scheme form.
You can contribute up to 100% of your salary towards your pension savings and still get tax relief, as long as the combined contributions from you and your employer are below the annual allowance. This applies to all the pensions you’re actively saving into, including NOW: Pensions and any personal pensions you have. It doesn’t apply to your State Pension.
For most people, the current annual allowance is £60,000 for the tax year 2024-2025. If you go over this you’ll have to pay tax on the amount over the allowance.
If you start taking money out of your pension savings while you’re still paying in to them, the money purchase annual allowance – currently £10,000 a year – could affect you. This means the total amount you and your workplace can pay into your pension savings and still get tax relief goes down to £10,000 a year.
Total earnings are all your earnings including bonuses, commission, overtime and similar payments.
If your employer uses total earnings to work out pension contributions the total minimum contribution rate is 7%.
Qualifying earnings are all your earnings between a lower and upper limit for any tax year. For the 2023/24 tax year the lower limit is £6,240 and the upper limit £50,270. The government reviews these limits every year and we’ll tell you if they change.
Qualifying earnings must include:
- salary
- wages
- commission
- bonuses
- overtime
- statutory sick pay
- statutory parental leave pay (maternity, paternity and adoption pay).
For example: if all your earnings, including a bonus, total £25,000 a year, your qualifying earnings are £25,000-£6,240 = £18,760.
Currently this is 5% of your auto enrolment qualifying earnings (unless your employer uses a different definition of pensionable earnings – the earnings that count towards pension contributions).
The total minimum contribution rate is currently 8% of qualifying earnings. Employers must pay at least 3% of this, so you must pay the remaining 5%. If your employer pays a higher rate than 3%, your minimum rate may be lower than 5%.
Some employers use a different definition of pensionable earnings, such as basic earnings or total earnings.
Basic earnings are all your earnings including basic pay, holiday pay and statutory pay such as sick pay or parental leave pay. They don’t include bonuses, commission, overtime and similar payments.
If your employer uses basic earnings to work out pension contributions the total minimum contribution rate is 9%. Your employer must pay at least 4% of this, so your minimum rate is 5%.
Total earnings are all your earnings including bonuses, commission, overtime and similar payments.
If your employer uses total earnings to work out pension contributions the total minimum contribution rate is 7%. Your employer must pay at least 3% of this, so your minimum rate is 4%.
You don’t have to pay just the minimum. You can build up more retirement savings by increasing your contributions. See Can I increase my contributions? for more about this.
Under auto enrolment, UK employers must legally provide a workplace pension for their employees. Your employer has chosen the NOW: Pensions Trust (the ‘Scheme’) to meet these requirements. You’re now a member of the Scheme.
Your pension contributions, together with your employer’s contributions, go towards building up your pension savings. In other words, you’re saving for your retirement with your employer’s help. You may also get tax relief.
The government introduced auto enrolment in 2012 to help people save for their retirement. It means all employers are legally required to provide a workplace pension for their eligible employees.
Put simply, a pension is a long-term savings plan you use to build up money for your retirement. Pensions have tax advantages compared to other types of saving.
Your fund value is the total amount of money in your pension savings with us at a particular point in time.
Your transfer value is the amount of money you can transfer out (take it out of the Scheme and move it to another pension provider).
Defined contribution pensions, like our Scheme, go up and down in value depending on the performance of the investments it uses. This affects the fund value and the transfer value.
The fund value is updated each week, usually on a Friday or Saturday. You can check the latest value online by logging in to your Gateway member account: nowgateway.com.
The transfer value is the value of your pension savings on the date you transfer them out of the Scheme. If you ask for a transfer value quote, it will be an estimate based on your fund value at the time of the quote and isn’t guaranteed. This is because investment values change all the time, so it’s not possible to know exactly what the value of your pension will be in advance.
Your contributions are invested in funds which aim to give a good return over the medium to long term. In the short term investments can go up or down in value, similar to how the stock market goes up or down.
Because of this, there may be times when your charges are higher than your investment growth. The chances of this happening will reduce as your pension savings increase in value.
When you and your employer pay contributions into your workplace pension, we invest them on your behalf for your future.
We want you to get the best possible return for your hard-earned pension savings – so we have a well-researched ‘pension saving journey’ designed to give you good value for money and positive long-term outcomes.
- to help them grow over time
- to protect their value as you get closer to retirement, and
- in ways that benefit the environment and our society.
We don’t ask you to make any investment decisions. Instead, the now:pensions Trustee takes responsibility for our investment strategy in consultation with its advisers. We believe this gives you the reassurance of knowing that your investments are being managed by professionals who have your long-term savings needs in mind. You can find out more about our investment strategy and how we protect your savings.
These are our investment funds. You also can see the latest fund prices.
Our Diversified Growth Fund
During most of your working life, we invest your pension savings in our Diversified Growth Fund. This fund is designed to provide stable growth, above the rate of inflation, without too many ups and downs in value over the long term.
Our Retirement Countdown Fund
Starting 10 years before your target retirement age – the age you’ve told us you want to retire at – we gradually switch your pension savings to the Retirement Countdown Fund. This fund aims to protect the value of your pension savings, reducing the risk of them falling in value when you’re due to turn them into retirement benefits.
Unless you tell us otherwise, we assume your planned retirement date is your State Pension age. Please keep us updated if your plans change. Remember, you can change your target retirement date in your online member account.
If you want to know more about our investment policy, please see our Member Booklet or our Statement of Investment Principles.
We sometimes have to adjust the value of your pension savings to put right something that’s gone wrong because of an administrative error.
Adjustments to the value of your investments
If there’s a delay in processing your contributions, we can’t invest them on the date we should. This means your investment values could be lower or higher than they would have been without the delay.
Delays are usually caused by us receiving incomplete or missing payroll data – such as a missing date of birth or National Insurance number.
If this affects you, we’ve adjusted your investments to put them back to what they would have been if we’d been able to invest them on the right date. Their value could be lower or higher. As a result, your benefit statement may show an adjustment that is a refund or a debit.
How do you work out adjustments to investments?
After getting contributions and payroll data from your employer, we look at all your contributions to see if any of them have an investment date more than 22 days later than the date they should have been invested.
The investment funds are divided into equal-value units. The weekly price of each unit changes depending on the value of the investments in each fund.
We use your contributions and your employer’s contributions to buy these units. The number of units we can buy depends on the unit price at the date we buy them. When unit prices go down, each contribution buys more units. When unit prices go up, each contribution buys fewer units.
We’ve adjusted the value of your pension savings using the price we would have paid for the investment units if we’d bought them within the 22-day period.
- If the price of your units should have been higher, your adjustment will be a debit.
- If the price of your units should have been lower, your adjustment will be a refund.
Adjustments to charges
If we’ve found there’s an error in the charges you’ve paid, we’ll make an adjustment to put this right. This can be a refund or a debit.
How do you work out adjustments to charges?
We check to see if the right amount was taken from your account to cover the charges up to and including 31 March. (We’ve checked this each month since your first contribution.)
These are the checks we make.
- Whether you’re an active member (paying contributions) or a deferred member (you’ve stopped paying contributions, but your pension savings are still in the Scheme).
- Whether we’ve applied the charges at the right time – for example, when you joined the Scheme.
- We’ve also made sure that you’ve only been charged once, even if you have more than one contract and more than one lot of pension savings in the Scheme (with the same or different employers).
If you’ve paid higher charges than you should have, the adjustment on your statement shows the refund we’ve added to your account. If you have several employment contracts, we added the refund to the account with the largest value.
If you’ve paid lower charges than you should have, the adjustment on your statement shows the debit we’ve taken from your account. If you have several employment contracts, we may have debited more than one account if there wasn’t enough in a single account.
I disagree with the amount being refunded or debited, what can I do?
If you think we’ve got something wrong, please let us know. We’ll do our best to put things right. You can contact us online through our member contact form or call us on 0330 100 3334 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm). To help us help you faster please tell us your full name, address and National Insurance number whenever you contact us.
If you’re not satisfied after doing this, you can use our formal complaints process. This is a step-by-step process involving our trustee and The Pensions Ombudsman.
We use a method called a Statutory Money Purchase Illustration (SMPI) to work out future pension estimates for you. All pension providers must use this method.
Your SMPI assumes you’ll use your pension savings in the Scheme to buy a pension – also known as an annuity – when you retire. It shows an estimate of the amount of pension you might get, in today’s money. (You don’t have to buy a pension – other options are available – but this keeps it simple and makes it possible to compare your estimates from year to year.)
How we work out the estimates on your benefit statement
We start with the estimated value of your pension savings on 31 March each year. But lots of things can affect the value of your pension between that time and when you decide to use your money – so we had to make some assumptions to work out your future pension estimate.
Assumptions about costs, contributions and inflation
Your SMPI assumes:
- the values and investment unit prices in your benefit statement for 31 March are correct
- any contributions we received after 31 March aren’t included
costs and charges are the same as they are at the date of your benefit statement - you and your employer continue to pay contributions to the Scheme at the same rates you were paying at the date of the benefit statement
- your pensionable earnings (the earnings that count towards your pension contributions) increase at 2.5% a year to the date you retire (we assume this is your State Pension age unless you’ve told us something different), and
- inflation will be 2.5% a year to the date you retire.
Assumptions about investment
Your SMPI assumes:
- we invest your pension savings in the Diversified Growth Fund until 10 years before you’re due to retire.
- from this date we gradually switch them to the Retirement Countdown Fund, and
- the investment funds will grow at the following rates:
- Diversified Growth Fund: 5% a year
- Retirement Countdown Fund (Series I and II): 2% a year.
Find out more about how your pension savings are invested.
Assumptions about how you use your pension savings
Your SMPI assumes:
- you will use your pension savings in the Scheme to buy a pension (annuity)
- your pension won’t increase, and
- your pension won’t include a spouse’s or civil partner’s pension.
The future pension figures on your benefit statement are estimates in today’s money. What actually happens will be different from what we’ve assumed, so these figures don’t come with a guarantee. For example, you may not use your pension savings to buy a pension. If you do buy a pension, its value depends on things like investment performance and the cost of turning your pension savings into an income, which may be different from the assumptions we’ve made here.
We can’t promise that your benefit statement shows the actual amount of money you, or anyone else who benefits from your pension, will get. You could get more or less than this amount. These figures are a guide to help you plan for the future. See more in our costs and charges explained booklet.
This is because you have more than one lot of pension savings with us. This could be because:
- you left your workplace pension in the Scheme, then rejoined at a later date
- how often you get paid has changed – for example, from weekly to monthly, or
- you’ve worked for more than one company who uses now:pensions as a pension provider.
If you’ve got several statements for the same Scheme year, it’s likely you have more than one contract with us. Each contract has a unique ID. You can see all your contracts by logging in to your member account at nowgateway.com/.
Each statement you receive will have your unique now:pensions contract ID for those pension savings. To work out the total value of your pension savings with us, add the savings values from each statement together.
You pay three different charges.
- Monthly administration charge. This is for running the Scheme. It costs £1.75 a month or £21 a year. But we won’t take the full administration charge if it would make the value of your pension savings lower than £100.
- Investment management charge. This is for investing the money in the Scheme. It costs 0.3% of the value of your pension savings every year.
- Transaction costs. These are for buying and selling investments. We don’t charge for them separately. We factor them into the returns on the Scheme’s investments.
You can see the combined effect of the monthly administration charge, investment management charge, and transaction costs over time in our costs and charges booklet.
Charging limit
We won’t take the full administration charge if it would make the value of your pension savings lower than £100. This helps prevent small amounts of pension savings being eaten away by administration fees.
The amount you pay for your pension matters a lot over a lifetime of saving. Download our costs and charges booklet for more examples of the effect of costs and charges on the value of your pension savings over time.
All members of the Scheme get a benefit statement. This includes you if:
- you paid contributions into your workplace pension during the Scheme year (up until 31 March)
- you no longer pay contributions, but still have pension savings in the Scheme.
We won’t give you a statement if you no longer have any pension savings in the Scheme. This is usually because you’ve transferred your pension savings out to another pension provider.
Your benefit statement is available to see online on our secure website, statements.nowpensions.com. You can download and print a copy.
If we have an email address for you, we’ll send you instructions telling you how to log in and see your benefit statement.
If we don’t have an email address for you, we’ll post your benefit statement notification to your home address, so please make sure we have an up-to-date address for you.
To ask to receive your benefit statement notification by email, please contact us online through our member contact form or email membersupport@nowpensions.com. To help us help you faster, please quote your full name and address, plus your now:pensions contract ID and National Insurance number in the email.
You can also call our member support team on 0330 100 3334 from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. When you contact us, please quote your full name and address, plus your now:pensions contract ID and National Insurance number. We might record your call to help us improve our service to you.
The now:pensions Scheme year runs from 1 April to 31 March. We must give you your annual benefit statement within 12 months of the last Scheme year. For example, we’ll make your 2022-2023 Scheme year statement available after 31 March 2023, but before 31 March 2024.
If you join our Scheme after 31 March 2024 (the end of the Scheme year), you won’t receive a benefit statement for 2023-2024. You’ll get your first statement next year for the Scheme year ending 31 March 2025.
Your benefit statement is an annual summary of your pension savings. It tells you about the savings you have now and what they could be worth in the future. Keep your benefit statement safe – it may help you when you’re making decisions about your retirement.
Your benefit statement tells you
- how much money you already have in your workplace pension savings up to 31 March 2023
- the charges you pay us to look after your pension
- how much money you could have on the date you plan to retire, and
- what you could do to save more money for your retirement.
Remember, you can check your latest fund value in our member website at nowgateway.com.
Access your latest benefit statement
Setting up your statement for the first time?
- Go to statements.nowpensions.com
- Enter your user ID <xxxxxx> and your temporary password. This is your National Insurance number, which is in the following format: QQ123456C. You can find your National Insurance number on your payslip.
- You’ll be prompted to re-enter the user ID and your temporary password. You’ll then be asked to create a new password. This should be made up of at least eight characters, including a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and a special character such as !, ?, @, or $.
- When you’ve done this, the website will return to the login page. You’ll need to log in again with your new password. In future, you’ll only need your user ID and new password to log in.
Already set up your benefit statement account?
- Go to statements.nowpensions.com and enter your user ID <xxxxxx> and password. Remember, your password is case-sensitive. If you’ve forgotten your password, go to ‘Click reset forgotten password’ and set up a new one.
- To access your benefit statement: once you’re logged in, go to the ‘Menu’ button, then ‘New Document’. Select ‘View’ to open and read your benefit statement.