At retirement, you get the option to swap lifetime pension for other benefits. These could include a tax-free cash lump sum, a temporary pension, or even a transfer value.

When you choose one of these alternatives, we need to give your lifetime pension a value. And we do this by using an actuarial factor, which acts as an exchange rate.

These actuarial factors are reviewed from time to time to make sure they reflect current market conditions. And this always happens following a formal valuation of the scheme.

The latest review results in changes to factors for our Late Retirement and Bridging Pension options - these changes are detailed below:

Late retirement option: We're improving the factors for taking a pension after your normal retirement age of 65. This means that late retirement pensions will be higher. The online estimator hasn't been updated to reflect this yet, but if you're leaving through late retirement we'll recalculate your figures to make sure you don't miss out.

Bridging pension option: The cost of buying temporary pension is increasing for retirements from 8 April 2024 and this is reflected in our new factors. The changes mean that you'll need to give up more lifetime pension in exchange for temporary pension. The online estimator has now been updated to reflect this.