Annual Member Statement

To register for My USS you’ll need your USS member number (you can find this on emails and correspondence you receive from us), your National Insurance number, and an email address (we recommend you use a personal one). With this information, you can create a password and security question to create your account on My USS. It will only take a few minutes.

You can reset your password or PIN – just visit the My USS log in page and select ‘Forgotten details?’. You can also watch our video on how to reset your password or PIN.

Once you’ve reset your details, you’ll receive the following emails within five minutes:

• Confirmation that you’ve requested to reset your details.
• Your temporary password and/or PIN. If you reset both, you will receive a separate email for each.

We’ll send them to the email address you use to sign into My USS. This may be different to the one you use to receive USS communications. If you don’t get these emails within five minutes, check your spam, junk or promotions folders.

If you’ve forgotten the email address you used to register with, you’ll need to contact our Member Service Team on 0333 300 1043. Lines are open 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Here are some things you can do in My USS:

• See the benefits you’ve built up in the Retirement Income Builder
• Review any Investment Builder savings and make investment choices that are right for you
• View or change your Target Retirement Age (TRA) if you have savings in the Investment Builder
• Top up your retirement savings with additional contributions (only for members paying in to USS)
• Complete your forms so we know who you’d like to receive your benefits when you die
• Update your details – like your contact email address, your communications preferences and your password and PIN.

If you joined after 31 March 2023, you won’t receive a statement this year. If you joined before 1 April 2023 and you can’t see your statement in the documents section of My USS, then there could be several reasons why you may not have received a statement at the same time as your colleagues. If you haven’t received your statement, please contact us.

If you’d like to update your personal details please get in touch with your employer’s pension contact in the first instance.

However, if you have a query on any of the figures referred to in your Annual Member Statement contact us via the contact us section within My USS or you can speak to the Member Service Team on 0333 300 1043 (lines are open 9am-5pm Monday-Friday). You can also write to us at Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited, Royal Liver Building, Liverpool, L3 1PY.

Contributions paid to the Retirement Income Builder are not shown in your statement or My USS because your Retirement Income Builder benefits are calculated based on your length of service, salary, and pension accrual rate, rather than the amount of money you contribute. However, you can see the total contributions you make to your USS pension in your employer payslips.

Your employer currently pays a monthly contribution equal to 21.6%* of your salary, while you pay 9.8% (or your employer may pay this on your behalf via salary sacrifice).

If you have earnings above the salary threshold, 20% of those earnings (from the total contributions paid by you and your employer above the salary threshold) are allocated to your Investment Builder pot and the remainder of your and your employer’s contributions are used to fund Retirement Income Builder benefits and other scheme costs.

*Contribution rate until April 2024 when it will fall to 21.4%. This contribution rate is subject to the outcome of the 2023 valuation and future valuations / any amendment to the USS schedule of contributions. Please note, the 31 March 2023 valuation is currently ongoing. As a result, the contribution structure of the scheme is being reviewed. However, at the time of writing, no changes have been formally agreed.

The statement is a snapshot of your benefits up to and including 31 March 2023 only. It will not show more recent contributions. You will be able to see your contribution transaction history for additional contributions, transfers in to USS, and any regular contributions above the salary threshold by logging in to My USS, the online portal for managing your membership.

The value of your Investment Builder in the statement is as at 31 March 2023, so it’s worth also checking the current value of your Investment Builder savings which you can see in your My USS account.

The value of your Investment Builder savings still may be less that what you’ve paid in as the value of your investments may go up as well as down. Investment returns are not guaranteed. In the short-term, growth of some of the funds and returns in the Investment Builder may be volatile and fluctuate in value, however, we invest for long term returns.

Yes. If you have more than one job that entitles you to membership with USS, the benefits from all those jobs will be combined on your statement.

Your Annual Member Statement includes the value of all the benefits you have built up to 31 March 2023, including any transfers in, added years AVCs, CRB benefit AVCs and any other additional contributions you may have made.

This figure won’t be shown if you’re:

• within two years of your Target Retirement Age (TRA),
• over the age of 66, or
• a low fund value and haven’t made any contributions to it this year.

Details of what benefits your savings will give you on retirement will be provided to you when you come to take your benefits.

If you have been issued your statement after 1 October 2023, then some of the assumptions used to determine your estimated annual income are different to those used in connection with your 2022 statement. For more information on this, visit our assumptions document.

Your Target Retirement Age (TRA) is important for a couple of reasons. It tells us when to move any investments you have in the Investment Builder to lower risk funds as you get closer to taking them – we do this for members in the USS Default Lifestyle Option and the USS Ethical Lifestyle Option (Do It For Me Options). We also use the TRA when we send you your annual projection of what your Investment Builder funds could be worth at retirement.

If you joined the Investment Builder on or after 6 October 2020, and you didn’t set a TRA it’ll automatically be set to the Scheme’s Normal Pension Age of 66. If you joined the Investment Builder before 6 October 2020, and you did not set a TRA, it will have been set as age 65 automatically. If you joined the Investment Builder before 6 October 2020 and set a TRA, the TRA you chose will remain in place.

It's worth periodically reviewing your TRA to ensure it fits with your retirement plans. You can update it in My USS. If you have set your TRA, it will remain in place.

For a projection of your benefits at your normal pension age or to see how retiring earlier or later might affect your benefits, log in to the Benefit Illustrator, with your USS member number and National Insurance number. Your USS member number can be found on your statement.

If you have not received your statement, you can still use the Benefit Illustrator non-login version and manually input your pension information to see a projection of your benefits to retirement age. To request up to date pension information, log in to My USS to see the value of your benefits or please use the contact us form.

Check out your options and different ages and stages for more information relating to early retirement and the other options you have when it comes to accessing your benefits. To see how changing when you retire could impact your retirement benefits, you can also use the Benefit Illustrator.

You can contact USS via the contact us section within My USS. Alternatively, you can speak to the Member Service Team on 0333 300 1043 (lines are open 9am-5pm Monday-Friday). You can also write to us at Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited, Royal Liver Building, Liverpool, L3 1PY.

This will depend on a number of things, such as the rate of income tax you pay, any tax relief to which you’re entitled and whether you’ve exceeded the Annual Allowance. For more information on pension tax, including changes to the Annual Allowance that came into effect from 6 April 2023, visit our pension tax page or go to gov.uk/tax-on-pension.

If you’ve incurred an Annual Allowance tax charge, you may be able to use Scheme Pays, depending on the amount of the charge. With Scheme Pays, USS pays the Annual Allowance charge direct to HMRC from your USS benefits on your behalf.

If your Annual Allowance tax charge is paid via Scheme Pays, it will be funded through your Investment Builder in the first instance. If those funds are insufficient, a pension reduction will be applied to your benefits in the Retirement Income Builder. Should you incur an Annual Allowance tax charge, you should think carefully about the option to use Scheme Pays.

For more information, including deadlines and terms and conditions, check out our pension tax web pages.

When you are informing the HMRC via your tax return of your intention to use Scheme Pays, you will need to give them the USS tax reference number of 00330004RR. For more information on Scheme Pays, including deadlines and terms and conditions, check out our Scheme Pays web page.

This is because of changes to the way you build up benefits in the Retirement Income Builder and savings in the Investment Builder from 1 April following a decision by the JNC, in response to the 2020 valuation of the scheme.1

From 1 April 2022 the accrual rate changed from 1/75 to 1/85 and the salary threshold reduced from £59,883.65 to £40,000.

The accrual rate is the rate that benefits build up in the Retirement Income Builder. It’s equivalent to a portion of your salary up to the salary threshold: The salary threshold is the limit at which you’ll automatically start paying into the Investment Builder. The benefits you build in the Retirement Income Builder are based on your salary up to the salary threshold. Since 1 April 2022, you’ve built up a Retirement Income Builder pension worth 1/85 of your salary and a separate lump sum of 3/85 of your salary up to the salary threshold. Prior to 1 April 2022, you built up a pension at a higher rate of 1/75 of your salary and a separate lump sum of 3/75 of your salary up to the salary threshold.

This means that, since 1 April, you’ve built less Retirement Income Builder benefits than in previous years. They’ll still be increased in line with USS’s standard increases both before and after you retire, and you’ll still have all of the same options at retirement, including your tax-free lump sum (up to certain limits). Any benefits you’ve already built up before 1 April 2022 will not be affected by these changes.

From 25 September to 24 November, employers are consulting with affected employees and their representatives on the JNC’s proposals in response to the 2023 valuation. One of those proposals is to return the accrual rate to 1/75 of your salary up to the salary threshold for pension built up and 3/75 for the lump sum from 1 April 2024. You can respond to the consultation on the consultation website or through your employer or employer representative. All responses received during the consultation period will be considered before any final decision is made and implemented.

You can contact USS via the make an enquiry section within My USS. Alternatively, you can speak to the Member Service Team on 0333 300 1043 (lines are open 9am-5pm Monday-Friday). You can also write to us at Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited, Royal Liver Building, Liverpool, L3 1PY.

If you exceeded the standard statutory Annual Allowance (AA) of £40,000 (or if applicable the Money Purchase Annual Allowance of £4,000) for the period 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023, we’ll send you a separate statement. The statement only accounts for the value of your USS benefits and savings, it doesn’t include any other pension savings you may have outside of USS.

Statutory Money Purchase Illustration Statements will be sent to relevant members from January 2024. If you receive one, it shows a snapshot of your savings as at 31 March 2023. As you had savings with us at that date, you will receive this statement for that date.

If you are retired and still have savings in the Investment Builder, you have some options on how to access and use these savings. You can, take cash payments from us (known as UFPLS), use your pot to provide a flexible retirement income, known as flexi-access drawdown or use your pot to buy a guaranteed income for life, known as an annuity.

Take a look at using your Investment Builder pot for more on your Investment Builder options.