If there is inflation once benefit payments begin, your pension will rise each year. The inflation measure to which your benefits are linked is called the Retail Prices Index (RPI). They will raise your pension by the percentage change in the RPI, not exceeding 5%. Here is more to discuss about this topic:
When does it increase?
If there is inflation in the year ended 30 September of the preceding year, your pension increases in April each year. At the end of March, they will send you a letter letting you know how much you’ll receive.
What if I only started collecting my benefits recently?
If you were already in pension and had started taking it within two weeks of the start date of a new Plan Year (year commencing 1 April), then you would not receive your first yearly increase until the next Plan Year. Or if you began taking your benefits at a later date in the Plan Year, your first yearly increase could be less to compensate.
What happens when I die?
If you die, your spouse or civil partner will receive a pension. After all, if you have no spouse or civil partner, they may pay a pension to someone on whom you were financially dependent. If we pay a pension to any of these people, their pensions also rise every year by the rate of inflation.
Indexation of Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP)
GMP is a pension that you traded in for the extra State Pension between April 1978 and 1997.
The government has introduced the new State Pension in the year 2016. It made the State Pension system less complicated, but at the same time, it eliminated, in effect, the way in which the State repays members their GMP. This is applicable to members who have reached their State Pension age from the date, 6 April 2016, onwards.
An ‘interim solution’, in effect from 6 April 2016 to 5 April 2021, under which schemes indexed a member’s entire pension, guaranteed that the government continued to meet its promises to members of public service pension members, including RMSPS.
After talking about Public Service Pensions: Indexation for Guaranteed Minimum Pensions, the government decided to interim solution retain as the long-term policy choice for public service pension plans.
How this affects you
If you got age of State Pension before 6 April 2016:
When you are aged 60 (woman) and 65 (man), GMP increases are paid. The RMSPS provides increases of about 3 % or less per year on earned GMP between April 1988 and April 1997. This is because if you took your State Pension started before April 2016, the government will normally apply increases on your GMP to your Additional State Pension.
If you reach the age for State Pension on or after April 6, 2016, the RMSPS takes care of all the pension increases.
Pension Increase (Review) Orders raise the pensions of Sections A and B members. Pension is increased according to the following:
- The annual increase in the rate of Retail Prices Index over the preceding year, or
- 5 %, whichever is lower, for Section C members only.
If you live overseas
If you permanently live in a country where the State does not pay increases on your State Pension, we will be responsible for increasing your total pension, including the GMP.
Dependants’ pensions
If pensions are payable to any of your dependants on your death, these will be increased, normally by the same rules as applicable to your pension.
Latest Articles
People May Also Ask
What is the guaranteed minimum pension increase order for 2023?
This increase is limited to 3 %. Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2023 prescribes that the minimum rate for GMPs is to be increased by up to the cap limit of 3 %. The increase in CPI for the relevant review period comes to 10.1 % (from September 2021 to September 2022).
What will be my Royal Mail pension?
You contribute 6 % of your pensionable pay towards your benefits. The rate at which you accumulate a cash lump sum is determined by Royal Mail. Currently, the rate is set at 19.6 % of each year’s pensionable pay, but discretionary increases to the lump sum are being sought each year.
How secure is the Royal Mail pension?
Some whose investment strategies in defined benefit pension schemes were meant to protect against fluctuations in interest and inflation rates were hit by the recent turmoil in UK financial markets.
