USS - General discussion

ussdave

Morgan-Green said:

Morgan-Green said:

Good to see this modest uplift, as my uni have refused my request to go part-time until I am 60 next March.

A little update on my situation. The uni have now agreed for me to phase my VR so I stay on at 0.2 from this September until March next year when I will retire. This makes a massive difference to the pension, so I am mightily relieved.

Thanks to those who gave advice and told me to push them. It worked!  

Brilliant to hear

Barralad77

Morgan-Green said:

Morgan-Green said:

Good to see this modest uplift, as my uni have refused my request to go part-time until I am 60 next March.

A little update on my situation. The uni have now agreed for me to phase my VR so I stay on at 0.2 from this September until March next year when I will retire. This makes a massive difference to the pension, so I am mightily relieved.

Thanks to those who gave advice and told me to push them. It worked!  

Great news. Common sense has prevailed and everyone is happy. What a fantastic result!

ussdave

Looks like the 24/25 USS RB accrual has now been added in the portal (though I'm not sure that inflation adjustments have been applied).

Nice to see a much healthier accrual rate as compared to the period with the negative changes.  I'd be happier with more, of course.

Southend_2

Both inflation and RB accrual have been updated.

Barralad77

Southend_2 said:

Both inflation and RB accrual have been updated.

But today the projected figures appear to have dropped once again. My projection for the end of this year is now over £700 less than it was two days ago. Quite how they think this modeller is useful is anyone’s guess. Up-Down-Up-Down…..Looks Good-Looks Bad-Looks Good-Looks Bad…. Utterly useless. I’ve asked for a quote so should be getting that soon, so will discover what the ‘real’ value is rather than the lottery that is the Benefit Illustrator.

uss_hamish

And sigh, today (having been "under maintenance" a while ago) it's back to that state where you try to log in and it tells you your details don't match those on their system, when they were in fact correct and presumably what has happened is that they haven't been able to reach their database...

uss_hamish

What bothers me is: why should we believe the quotes are any more reliable (in how they compare with the numbers that would come out of a completely correct calculation according to the scheme rules) than what comes out of the benefit calculator? It's not possible to get frequent enough quotes to see whether they do the up down up down thing too...

Asimovs_nightfall

I suppose they can only go up and down because someone changes the value in the variables used in the calculation. It seems as if it occurs more regularly these days and my question would be why would it happen so often? 

Barralad77

Asimovs_nightfall said:

I suppose they can only go up and down because someone changes the value in the variables used in the calculation. It seems as if it occurs more regularly these days and my question would be why would it happen so often? 

Agree. We’ve seen them change due to changes to the factors used (specifically, for retiring early, which worsened on October 1st) and also for differences in the annual increase being assumed by the modeller (e.g., it had been assuming an increase this year of 2.5% but it turned out to be 1.7%) but that should have resulted in one change last Autumn and one change this Spring, I think? Yet there are changes appearing every few weeks at the moment. Clearly, something is being adjusted each time but I’ve no idea what it might be (especially given the magnitude of the resulting changes). My projected value for the end of this year dropped by nearly 5% this week. Why is anyone’s guess. I had thought that all the various adjustments that might take place at the start of the new financial year were complete (after all, we’re nearly two months into the new FY) but, no. I’ve given up phoning USS as no-one I speak to seems to know anything about the modeller (why it changes, in particular).

Morgan-Green

Hello all

Another question, if I may.

I will be made redundant at the end of March next year, just after I turn 60.  The USS website says that "in some cases you may be able to take all or part of your pension unreduced from age 60 but you’ll need to check this with your employer".  I asked my university about this and they replied that "we're not able to offer advice on your pension", which feels like they may have missed the point?

Anwyay, I appear to be in a Catch 22, as each party says speak to the other, so my question is can anyone advise what determines whether the pension can be taken unreduced from age 60 if you're made redundant?  Is there a specific question I need to ask my university?

Thanks