You are receiving the Terms and Conditions and this Automatic Enrolment Membership Schedule because your employer has made arrangements for you to have a Penfold Pension. This is part of your employer complying with its obligations under the automatic enrolment requirements. You will have been contacted separately by your employer in respect of your membership of the Penfold Pension.
The Penfold Pension
The pension plan is known as the Penfold Pension and is designed to let you:
- Save for retirement in a tax-efficient and flexible way.
- Build up a pension fund to give you an income and a tax-free cash sum at minimum pension age (currently age 55).
- Take control of your pension fund investments, if you wish to.
- Make transfer payments into your Penfold Pension from other suitable pension arrangements.
- Take benefits at retirement in stages, if you want to.
- Specify to whom you would like benefits to go on your death, although the decision rests with Penfold as the Scheme Administrator.
The services we provide in connection with your Penfold Pension are as set out in this Schedule and the Terms and Conditions.
Special Terms Applying to your Penfold Pension
Please read both the Terms and Conditions and this Schedule carefully and keep them together. The Terms and Conditions attached to this Schedule apply to your Penfold Pension. However, because your employer has made arrangements for you to have a Penfold Pension in connection with its obligations under the automatic enrolment requirements, this Schedule makes the following important modifications to the Terms and Conditions in respect of your membership of the Penfold Pension:
1. Membership of the Penfold Pension
1.1 Joining the Penfold Pension: Your employer has made arrangements with the Penfold Pension so that you can become a member. You do not need to do anything to become a member and there is no Application to complete. There are no ongoing choices for you to make in order to remain a member.
1.2 Opting-out: You may opt out of the Penfold Pension at any time.
1.2.1 Usually opting-out will mean that contributions will stop being paid to your Penfold Pension although your existing Penfold Pension assets will continue to be invested.
1.2.2 However if you have joined the Penfold Pension because your employer has determined you are a ‘Jobholder’ for the purposes of the automatic enrolment requirements, and you opt-out within 1 month of either becoming a member or receiving the necessary information, your Penfold Pension will be cancelled, you will be treated as never having become a member and Penfold will return any contributions that have been paid. You will need to contact Penfold via the App or Website for a copy of the opt-out notice to arrange this. Please note your employer cannot ask you or require you to opt-out of the Penfold Pension
1.2.3 Even if you are not a ‘Jobholder’, you still have a legal right to cancel your Penfold Pension within the first 30 days as described in the Terms and Conditions.
1.3 Future contributions to the Penfold Pension: If you opt-out of the Penfold Pension, you may be able to opt back in for future employer contributions but you will need to contact your employer if you want to do this, and you may need to make your own contributions too. If you remain employed by your employer, they may be required in the future to restart contributions for you, in accordance with their automatic enrolment obligations, and this may mean you paying contributions too. You can also choose to make your own contributions in accordance with the Terms and Conditions.
1.4 If you opt-out and your existing Penfold Pension assets continue to be invested with no new contributions being made, the Terms and Conditions and this Schedule will continue to apply to you unless you are told otherwise.
2. Contributions
2.1 Your employer must make contributions in respect of your membership. The contributions made by you and your employer must, when combined, meet the minimum level required under the automatic enrolment requirements.
2.2 The Contribution Notice sets out the contributions that are payable by your employer in respect of your membership. The Contribution Notice may also show that contributions are due from you as well, in order to meet the minimum level required when added to the contributions your employer is paying. Please note, if the Contribution Notice shows that contributions are due from you, this forms part of the terms and conditions of your membership.
2.3 You may elect to pay higher contributions than the amount required from you in the Contributions Notice, if you wish. You can do this either on a regular or ad hoc basis via your employer or our App.
3. Charges
3.1 Please see the Charges Guide for details of the charges that will apply in respect of your Penfold Pension.
4. Investments
4.1 Whilst you are a member you can make your own investment choices, although you do not have to do so.
4.2 The Trustee and Penfold operate a default investment option in which the contributions to your Penfold Pension will be invested if you do not take any action or make any choice. This is called the ‘Default Option’. If you do not decide otherwise, your Penfold Pension will be invested in the Default Option.
You can read more about the Default Option in our Auto Enrolment Default Plan document which can be found in the documents area of the App.
4.3 If the Default Option is changed in any way by the Trustee, Penfold will notify you and explain the next steps.
4.4 If you want to choose your own investments, all of the Penfold Pension investment options are available to you, unless we have notified you in writing that the investment would breach the automatic enrolment requirements or the provisions of this Schedule. You can make your investment choices via the App.
5. Liability
5.1 In addition to the provisions of the main Terms and Conditions we shall not be liable for any losses suffered by you (or your beneficiary or dependant) as a consequence of:
5.1.1 your selection of, or you switching between, any investment options or Default Options;
5.1.2 any limits on investment options or Default Options which are requested by your employer;
5.1.3 any decision relating to any investment option or Default Option;
5.1.4 the investment performance of any investment option or Default Option;
5.1.5 the operation of any salary sacrifice arrangement;
5.1.6 the breach of any agreement between your employer and us, or the breach of the Contribution Notice as it requires payments to be made by you;
5.1.7 the late payment or deduction of contributions by you or your employer;
5.1.8 any failure by your employer to notify Penfold that you have opted out;
5.1.9 the loss of any tax protections which you have registered with HMRC resulting from your membership of the Penfold Pension.
6. Automatic Enrolment Requirements
The terms and conditions of your membership of the Penfold Pension are intended to comply with the automatic enrolment requirements. To the extent that any provision of the Terms and Conditions (including as modified by this Schedule) do not comply with the automatic enrolment requirements, those provisions shall be amended or deleted to the extent necessary to ensure there is no breach of the automatic enrolment requirements as they apply to you.
7. Definitions
The words and expressions used in the Terms and Conditions have the same meaning in this Schedule. In addition, the following words and phrases shall mean as follows:
‘automatic enrolment requirements’ means the requirements of the Pensions Act 2008 and regulations made in connection with that Act. Broadly, this legislation requires employers to automatically enrol their employees into pension provision, or otherwise make pension provision available to their workers.
‘Jobholder’ is a term used in the automatic enrolment legislation and means a particular type of employee who the employer has made pension provision for. Where a Jobholder has been automatically enrolled into the Penfold Pension in accordance with the automatic enrolment requirements, they have a special right to opt-out, as noted at paragraph 1.2.