From age 50 (age 55 from 2010), if you wish to draw your pension and leave HBOS employment prior to age 62, you can apply to do so.
This is subject to company consultation and approval by the Trustees. Also, your date of leaving must be agreed by your line manager.
If this option sounds attractive you will need to consider the following:
- You must use all your individual retirement account to either purchase an annuity or take a combination of a tax free lump sum and a reduced annuity. It is not possible to only use part of your individual retirement account.
- If you take voluntary early retirement, the pension benefits you receive are likely to be less than if you'd remained in the Scheme. This is because your individual retirement account will have received fewer contributions, had less time to grow, and the annuity purchased will start earlier and therefore have to last longer.
- All pensions and annuities are subject to income tax. This means if you opt to take your benefits and find another job elsewhere, you will be paying income tax on both your pension and regular earnings. Only you will know if you're happy with this, but you need to be wary incase the extra income from your annuity pushes you into a different tax bracket.
You can also use the HBOS Pension Planner to see the effect of leaving the Scheme at a particular point.
more about retirement
