Retirement options
Your options
When you're getting close to your normal retirement age, we'll send you a retirement pack. Log in to check your normal retirement age.
Your retirement pack explains:
- how much pension you get
- your options for taking your pension
We’ll include some forms for you to complete.
If you’re over 55 and you would like to retire early, you can contact us to request a retirement pack now.
Depending on your personal circumstances, you could have up to 4 options:
- A regular pension
- A regular pension, with pension increase exchange (PIE)
- A trivial commutation payment
- Choose to transfer your pension out of the Scheme
Any Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) you've made are invested separately. If you want to change your investments or check how they're performing, please sign in to your account and select ‘contact us' from the menu.
The information below summarises these options. You can read more about them in our comprehensive guide.
Option 1 - A regular pension
We’ll pay you a pension every month for the rest of your life.
Read about how this pension increases.
You can choose to swap some of your pension for a tax-free cash lump sum. If you do this, you’ll receive a smaller pension every month.
Your retirement pack will explain how much cash you can take.
When you die, your family may also receive benefits.
Option 2 - A regular pension, with pension increase exchange
This option is similar to Option 1 – you’ll get a pension each month for the rest of your life, you can swap some of your pension for a tax-free lump sum, and your family may receive benefits when you die.
However, with Option 2 you can choose to exchange future increases on part of your pension for a bigger pension now. This is called pension increase exchange (PIE).
We only offer PIE to some members, so it might not appear in your retirement pack.
Deciding whether PIE is right for you will depend on lots of factors. This is a complex decision, so we will only let you choose this option if an independent financial adviser recommends it to you.
We have selected a firm called Origen Financial Services to give you independent financial advice.
We will pay for you to have 1 appointment with Origen. If you need a second appointment, or if you want to use your own financial adviser, you will need to pay for this yourself.
Your retirement pack will explain how to contact Origen, and it will give you the full details of how PIE works and what it means for you.
Option 3 - A trivial commutation payment
If the value of your YCB pension – plus any other pensions you have – is £30,000 or less, you can ‘cash in’ your YCB pension and take it as one cash lump sum.
This is called a trivial commutation payment. The first 25% of this payment is tax-free.
If you choose a trivial commutation payment, you and your family will not receive any further benefits from the Scheme.
Option 4 – Choose to transfer your pension out of the Scheme
You can choose not to take a pension from the Scheme and transfer the value of your benefits to another pension arrangement instead.
Read about transferring your benefits
HMRC limits the total amount of tax-free lump sums and lump sum death benefits that can
be paid to you from all your registered pension schemes.
These limits are called the Lump Sum Allowance (LSA) and the Lump Sum and Death Benefit
Allowance (LSDBA).
The standard LSA is currently £268,275.
The standard LSDBA is currently £1,073,100.
If you hold valid protection registered with HMRC for a higher Lifetime Allowance, this may
increase your LSA and LSDBA.
You can sign in for more information about the LSA and LSDBA.