Contribution to DC Pension

stevenm37

Hi all. I have a company DC pension scheme with a flexible individual contribution amount. I’m currently putting 16% in and my employer puts in 12%. I have a pay increase of 4% in April so I’m increasing my contribution to 20%. I have been reading about AVCs and my question is, am I effectively already putting AVCs in my pot as I can increase/decrease as required depending on me managing on my after tax take home pay or are there other benefits to having an AVC policy separate from my DC policy? Thanks in advance, Steve 

molerat

AVCs are generally into a DB pension buying benefits in addition to those defined.  AVCs, or as in your case flexible contributions, into a DC pension is just adding more money to the pot, having them separate to the work pension would simply be another pension.

Albermarle

As above but I have seen other threads where employees and employers refer to AVCs, when just talking about additional payments over the minimum to the main workplace pension.
It is an inaccurate use of the term AVC as it is normally understood. 

dunstonh

I have been reading about AVCs and my question is, am I effectively already putting AVCs in my pot as I can increase/decrease as required depending on me managing on my after tax take home pay or are there other benefits to having an AVC policy separate from my DC policy?

Its very unusual to have an AVC on a DC plan.  In most cases, you can just increase your personal contribution and it doesn't require an AVC to be in place.

Are you sure you are using an AVC and not just increasing the DC scheme?