What does it mean for you?
PME is targeting a switch on 1 January 2027, to a new scheme that will serve us well for years to come. That may sound daunting, but not everything changes. Here’s what you can expect.
Keeping what works
Every month, a contribution is made towards your pension. This contribution comes from your employer, and you usually contribute a part yourself. You can see this on your payslip. The contribution will remain the same under the new scheme for at least the first few years. Together with your employer, you will set aside as much for your pension as you do now.
Anyone who lives or works in the Netherlands is entitled to a state pension. That won’t change. The age at which you start receiving your state pension depends on your date of birth.
You’re accruing a pension with PME through your employer. You choose when you want that pension to start. And you will receive it for as long as you live. Even if you’re well over a hundred.
If you receive your pension from us, the amount you receive can only go up or down once a year. Just like now.
If you pass away, your partner will receive a monthly partner’s pension from us, and your young children will receive a monthly orphan’s pension.
If you become occupationally disabled, your pension will continue to accrue. But you won’t have to contribute money to it yourself anymore. PME will cover the contributions for you, based on the severity of your occupational disability.
Did you know that you have a lot of choices to make for your pension? For example, you can choose to retire before, on, or after your state retirement age. You can also partly retire. And you can start with a higher or lower pension amount. All these choices will remain. This way, you yourself can make sure that your pension is compatible with your lifestyle. Explore your choices.
We will invest the monthly contribution. We’ve been doing that for years. After all, in the long run investing yields more than just saving. Of course, there are occasionally bad times on the stock market. But if you take a long-term view, the money is expected to grow. The majority of your pension usually consists of the profit we make on investments. That is why we will continue to invest, also under the new scheme. Good to know: you won’t have to make any investment choices yourself. We will continue to do this for you. Learn more about investing.
Gains and losses will be shared collectively, as well as major risks, ensuring pensions remain fair and affordable for everyone.
Find out what it means to you
The details of the new scheme are outlined in a so-called transition plan (pdf, in Dutch), which we’ve summarised in an easy-to-understand format. Choose your current situation below to see what the new rules mean for you.
Improving what can be better
With the new rules, some things will work differently than before. Here are the main changes. Want to learn more about a specific topic? Check out the five images above and choose the situation that applies to you.
What’s new
Under the new scheme, you’ll have your own pension pot. This will hold the monthly contributions from you and your employer. And the profits (and sometimes losses) from investing.
When you retire, your monthly pension will come from this pot. And it’s good to know that this pension pot cannot run dry. You will always receive a pension, no matter how old you become. Even if you live to over a hundred.
The new scheme allows us to take your age into account better. As long as you’re young, we will take more risk because that will yield the most over time. If an investment doesn’t go so well, in principle there’s enough time to make things right again. Your pension pot can go up and down quite a lot during that period.
The older you are, the less risk we will take. This will give you more and more certainty about the amount you will receive when you stop working. After your retirement we will still invest, but we will take less risk for you. This will contribute to a stable pension.
Pension funds like PME are obliged to switch to a contribution scheme. With such a scheme, the employee and employer associations in our sector (also known as the social partners) agree on how much money goes towards your pension pot, and no longer on how much pension you will end up with. Promises about the amount of your pension are therefore not included in the new scheme. What you will get will depend on the contributions, the return on the investments and the level of the interest rate when you retire.
The social partners want a good pension for everyone. The new scheme should offer you a chance of a pension with greater purchasing power. That is, a pension that can keep up with rising prices better than it does now.
Under the new scheme, the partner’s pension in the event that you die before your retirement is shaped differently. This also applies to the orphan’s pension for your young children. Any partner’s or orphan’s pension you may have already accrued under the old scheme will remain intact. So, you won’t lose anything and in most cases you will even get a little extra.
If you receive your pension from us, several measures will be in place to protect it as much as possible. As a result, while the risk of falls will never be completely ruled out, it is likely to be limited.
Your pension will have more potential to increase. One of the reasons for this is that we will no longer be obliged to have huge buffers. Windfalls are therefore more likely to end up in your wallet.
Do you do shift work? Under the new scheme, you will also accrue pension benefits on your shift work allowance. This is introduced in annual steps. After five years, the collectively agreed shift work allowance will count towards your pension in full. If your employer has already ensured that you accrue pension benefits on the shift work allowance, then that will remain the case.