Insurances Personal Retirement Your options

Retirement Planning

For many people, retirement is an abstract concept. Only when they retire do they find out what they have been saving for all that time. Sometimes it’s a disappointment because they have less money than they thought they’d have. We want you to understand your retirement plan so that after you retire, you’ll have the financial means to live however you want. 

You work your entire life to save up for your retirement, whether you saved via your job or maybe you even saved on your own. Here’s what your pension is made up of:

  • AOV (government pension).
  • Pension via your employer.
  • Your personal contributions.

AOV

AOV is the government’s pension plan. This public pension plan provides a basic pension to those who have reached the age of 65. All residents, not only employers and employees, but also self-employed individuals, housewives, school children and students, receive government pension. Anyone that has an income must also pay the AOV premium.

The amount of the benefit depends on the number of years someone has been included in the plan. If you’ve lived abroad anytime before you retired, then according to the rules, during that time you were not included in the plan and therefore didn’t build up any government pension. Your government pension will be reduced for every year that you were not included in the plan. The Social Security Administration (SVB) executes the law that manages the government pension plan.

Pension via your employer

In addition to the government pension, you can build up a pension  via your employer. This is arranged via a retirement plan that an employer commits to its employees. The retirement plan is part of the employee benefits. Retirement plans can be built up in various ways, the most common forms being: final and average pay plan and defined contribution schemes.

Under ideal circumstances, you have been employed for 40 years and have built up the maximum pension. With the maximum pension, the government pension and the additional pension together constitute 70% of your last earned salary. However, for various reasons this is seldom the case (e.g. haven’t worked for 40 years, change of employer, divorce, etc.).

Do you hold a special position within your company? Then take a look at Individual Retirement Plan.

Your personal contribution

You yourself can also arrange income provisions via an annuity or life insurance, for example, if your employer does not have a retirement plan or if you are not employed. Even if you have built up your maximum pension to 70% of your last earned salary, you would still have less than what you need. This is why we recommend to also save on your own. For example, with life insurance, investments or property, your personal contribution not only creates additional room to breathe financially, but it can also be used to alleviate the financial concerns of your family in the event of your death.

Have a look at our Whole Life Insurance.

Have any questions?

It is wise to be aware of the state of your pension in order to know what you have built up with your employer and which supplemental income is the best for you. The earlier you begin saving, the better. It doesn’t have to immediately be a hefty investment. Use our free pension check and let us then draw up a retirement plan for you. This way, there won’t be any surprises later on.

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