Halifax Regional Municipality Pension Plan Notice to Plan Members NEW Retirement Calculator

Transcription

1 Halifax Regional Municipality Pension Plan Notice to Plan Members NEW Retirement Calculator March 2018 At the HRM Pension Plan Office, we care about plan members retirement. We want to ensure that plan members understand the retirement benefits that they are offered and properly plan for this important stage in life. To help with this, the Retirement Calculator offered to plan members on our website ( is being expanded to include additional features. In addition to providing a detailed estimate of the pension benefits to be provided by the Defined Benefit ( DB ) provision and Defined Contribution ( DC ) Account of the HRM Pension Plan, the NEW Retirement Calculator will allow members to estimate additional income that could be provided during retirement from the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS), retirement income from other plans, and any other additional personal savings that the member might have. Expenses can also be incorporated into the members retirement planning. The NEW Retirement Calculator will be released on April 30, At that time, you will need to set up a new account. This notice explains how to set up your new account and provides a general summary of the various features that will be available on the NEW Retirement Calculator. A more detailed User Guide and Frequently Asked Questions will be distributed in mid/late April 2018 and will be available on our website ( DO NOT try to set up your new account before the NEW Retirement Calculator is released on April 30, If you have any questions after reading this document, or about other HRM pension benefits, you can contact us by visiting our office in person at: 1809 Barrington Street Suite 1108, CIBC Building Halifax, NS B3J 3K8 Or by phone or at: Phone: Toll Free: Fax: HRMPension@halifax.ca Sincerely, Plan Member Services

2 Accessing the Tool You can access the NEW Retirement Calculator in the same manner as before by clicking on the Retirement Calculator button under the I am a Plan Member section of the website as shown on the screenshot below:

3 Creating your User Account You will have to create a new account when you log in to the NEW Retirement Calculator for the first time. DO NOT try to set up your new account before the NEW Retirement Calculator is released on April 30, After you have clicked on the Retirement Calculator button on the HRM Pension Plan website, simply click on the Register Now button as shown on the screenshot below: There are 3 steps to follow in order to create your account: Step 1: Input the required personal information in order to confirm your identity. Your Postal Code can be entered with or without spaces. Your Date of Birth must be entered in the format mm-dd-yyyy. Then select/enter a username and password in the spaces provided. Please pay attention to the format you should use to enter information and for the username/password criteria. When you are finished entering all the requested information, click the Register button at the bottom of the page followed by the Proceed to Log In button on the next screen. Step 2: Using the username and password you selected, log on to the website. Step 3: Provide answers to the required security questions and click the Update button. Then click I Agree once you have read the disclaimer on the next screen.

4 For each subsequent visit to the NEW Retirement Calculator, you will need to enter the username and password that you created when you first logged in. In the event that you forget your password, you can select the Click here if you forgot your password icon as shown in the screenshot above, then answer the security questions that you set up during your login and reset your password. If you forget your username please contact the HRM Pension Plan Office by phone at or by at Home Page Once you have logged on, you will see the Home Page as shown in the screenshot below: The Home Page provides you with quick links to the various sections of the website. You can access the different sections of the website by clicking on the desired option. For example, to view your past annual statements, click on the Annual Statements button along the top of the screen as shown above.

5 The Login Update Page The Login Update page is where you can update your password and answers to your challenge questions. Simply click on the appropriate section to execute one of these tasks. The following screenshot provides you with an example:

6 The Personal Information Page The Personal Information section is where you can access and view the demographic and financial information that we have on file for you. You can view personal information such as your address, date of birth and spousal information. You can view Plan information such as your participating employer, division and employee class. Service and salary details can also be viewed here.

7 The Retirement Modeling Page Below is a screenshot of the Retirement Modeling page: Retirement Milestones: Here you will be able to see various eligibility dates related to your pension entitlements. You can view when you will be able to receive pension benefits from the HRM Pension Plan, CPP and OAS. HRM Benefit Estimate: In the HRM Benefit Estimate section, you can generate estimates of the retirement benefits that will be available to you from the HRM Pension Plan at various dates. If you have benefits payable from one of the Prior Plan provisions, these benefits will not be included in this estimate. You can refer to your most recent annual statement to see your accrued pension from the Prior Plan provision as at the last year end date (if applicable).

8 Retirement Planning: In addition to the benefits available from the HRM Pension Plan, the Retirement Planning section allows you to incorporate and model additional sources of income (ex. CPP and OAS), other defined benefit pensions (for example, any pension accrued under the Prior Plan provisions), personal RRSPs (or amounts related to the DC Plan for Certain Employees of the HRM or the Group RRSP Plan, if applicable), TFSAs and other non-registered savings, and expenses (ex. mortgage payments) into your retirement planning. This section will also provide you with feedback related to how prepared you are for retirement. Past Calculations: In this section, you can view or delete previous estimates that were completed in the past. Any estimates that were produced prior to April 30, 2018 will not appear on this page. More details on the Retirement Modeling section of the tool will be available in the user guide in mid/late April 2018.

9 The General Information Page Below is a screenshot of the General Information page: The General Information page provides members with links to various pension related information. Here you can access documents such as the HRM Pension Plan Text, various amendments and Annual Reports. It also provides useful links to get information about the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security programs.

10 The Annual Statements Page The Annual Statements page is where you can access and view your historical annual HRM Pension Plan statements. Simply click the appropriate statement that you would like to view and it will open in a pdf formatted document. Logging Out To log out of the Retirement Calculator, simply click the Logout button that is located in the top right corner of any screen within the tool. When you log out, you will be re-directed to the login page of the Retirement Calculator.