2021 Annual Member Statement

It’s important to be ready for the future. You’ll have a number of choices when you reach retirement and when you retire can affect how you receive your pension, so it’s important to consider your options. Understand your options, check out the pre-retirement checklist, and use the Benefit Illustrator, to estimate what you could get at retirement and to make sure you’re on track for the lifestyle you want.

My USS is the online portal for managing your pension through your personalised pensions dashboard. Log in or register now to:

• See the benefits you've built up in the Retirement Income Builder
• View and manage any Investment Builder savings
• Choose the Investment Builder funds and investment approach that are right for your personal investment objectives and beliefs
• Review your Investment Builder fund choices and compare performance of funds available to you
• Boost your savings with additional contributions
• Transfer savings from other pension schemes to USS
• Access forms to update things like your Expression of Wish, to tell us who you want to receive any lump sum we may pay when you die.

USS is a hybrid pension scheme, so it has both a defined benefit (DB) section and defined contribution (DC) section. You can read about both parts below or watch the video that explains how they work.

Retirement Income Builder

A DB pension, like the Retirement Income Builder, builds benefits based on your salary up to the salary threshold - it’s funded by contributions from you and your employer. This gives you a regular income every year for the rest of your life and a one-off, cash lump sum (tax-free up to a certain limit) of three times your pension at retirement. All members automatically join the Retirement Income Builder.

Investment Builder

The Investment Builder is a DC arrangement – this means we invest contributions from you and your employer based on the investment choices you make. The returns on those investments then build up in your Investment Builder pot. Some members automatically join the Investment Builder if they earn above the salary threshold. If you are making additional contributions or have transferred in from another scheme in the last few years (or switched funds from Prudential), you’ll have savings in the Investment Builder. All members can choose to make additional contributions to the Investment Builder.

Visit how your pension works page to find out more about the Retirement Income Builder and Investment Builder.

Visit our pension tax page, for an explanatory video and more information about the limits on the pensions benefits you can build up before you may incur a tax charge, find out how these limits work and the options available to help you to manage your pensions tax.

The Benefit Illustrator gives you an up-to-date view of your retirement savings. It will show you the impact of:

• taking your benefits at different ages; and
• contributing more.

Standard USS pension increases are applied to the benefits you have in the Retirement Income Builder. Read Your guide to USS for more information on how they work.

If you have pension benefits with another scheme, you may be able to transfer these to USS. See our transferring in to USS page for more information and next steps.

USS gives you peace of mind: if you were to die whilst still contributing to USS, your beneficiaries could receive a range of USS benefits. You can find the Registration of potential dependant and the Expression of Wish forms, plus more information, on our what happens when you die page.

Your Expression of Wish lets us know who you’d want to receive a lump sum that we may pay when you die. We recommend you update your forms at least every three years, even if your wishes haven’t changed. Log in to My USS to complete online or download the Expression of Wish form to print and return to us.

If you’re not married and you don’t have a civil partner, use this form to let us know if there is someone who you’d want to be considered to receive the equivalent of a spouse’s pension when you die. Log in to My USS to complete online or download the Registration of potential dependant form to print and return to us.

Your Target Retirement Age (TRA) is the age you're planning to start taking your Investment Builder savings. It only applies to any savings you have in the Investment Builder.

We use this age to calculate some of your DC savings figures in your statement – particularly what you could expect to have at this age if you continue paying into the Investment Builder. We also use this if you have funds invested in the Default or Ethical Lifestyle (Do It For Me Option) fund path. When you are 10 years from your TRA, we start to move your savings into less risky funds in preparation for your retirement. Additionally, it lets us know when to get in touch about your options as you approach this age. If you’ve chosen to invest in our self-select funds (Let Me Do It Option), you’re responsible for reviewing and managing your own investments, but we’ll still send you a letter to remind you of your options around six months before your TRA.

You can change your TRA in My USS.

The Quarterly Investment Report for the Investment Builder contains information about the funds and their performance, available in My USS.

There are several options of how and when you can take your Investment Builder savings, even before you retire. For more information on how you can take these, visit taking your benefits and savings.

Don’t let a scammer enjoy your retirement. Find out more about how pension scams work, how to protect yourself from scams and what to do if you suspect a scam by reading the FCA ScamSmart leaflet.