Leaving before retirement or opting out

If you have paid LGPS contributions for less than two years, whether you are under or over age 55, you will not have built up a pension benefit.

As long as you do not have any other LGPS membership elsewhere in England or Wales and you have not transferred a previous pension to us, you can have a refund of your pension contributions less 20% tax.

• You must claim your refund within five years of stopping your LGPS contributions, or by age 75 if earlier
• If you do not claim the refund and you have other LGPS membership elsewhere, a refund will no longer be payable. It will be combined with your other LGPS pension account instead

If you opt out within 3 months of joining LGPS, your employer will refund your contributions through your pay. All other refunds will come from the Clwyd Pension Fund.

If you have more than two years LGPS membership and are under age 55, you will have a deferred pension in the LGPS. Read how we work this out at working out your deferred pension.

Your deferred pension benefits will increase each year in line with the cost of living.

Your normal retirement age is either your State Pension Age, or 65 if later.

• You can ask to receive your deferred pension any time after age 55. If you take your pension before you reach your normal retirement age, the pension benefits will be reduced for taking them early.

  We will send you a retirement pack including your pension figures, and details of any reduction.

• If you suffer with ill health, you may be able to start your pension before age 55. The ill health pension would not be reduced for early payment, but for this reason, you would need your ex employer’s permission to receive it.

  Once the pension is in payment, it will keep increasing each year in line with the cost of living. The pension will be paid to you for life.

• You also have the option of transferring your deferred pension to another pension scheme.

You can transfer your pension benefits out to another pension scheme whether you have more or less than 2 years LGPS membership. However, you must transfer at least 12 months before reaching your normal retirement age. Your normal retirement age is either your State Pension Age, or 65 if later.

You can find more details about transferring out here.

You can choose to stop paying LGPS contributions, while still working for your employer. This is called opting out. You will either have a refund of contributions, a deferred pension, or a transfer out, as we explain above.

If you opt out and then opt back in again at a later date, you will have two separate pension accounts with us. We can’t combine them.

If you’re over age 55 when you opt out, you cannot receive your pension straight away. You have to leave the job you opted out of first.

Please note: there are automatic enrolment rules that will affect you if you stay opted out of the scheme:

• Your employer will normally have to put you back into the pension scheme in around 3 years.
• If you change job, your employer will normally put you back into the pension scheme straightaway.
• If you have an additional job, your employer might also put you into the pension scheme for that job.

When this happens, you will be able to opt out again if you want to.

Remember that if you choose to opt out, you will have a lower pension income when you retire, and you will not qualify for enhanced death in service or ill health retirement benefits. If you do want to opt out, you can find the opt out form here.

Instead of opting out of the LGPS, you can join the 50:50 section instead. This is where you pay half the contribution amount to build up half the pension value. You also keep death in service and ill health retirement cover. If you want to do this, please complete a joining the 50:50 section form.