Taking tax-free cash

When you retire, you can take part of your benefits as a tax-free cash payment. Taking cash means your pension income will be lower.

We will try to maximise your retirement income. Usually this means that we will use your retirement account as the first source for providing any tax-free cash you choose to take, before converting any of your pre-April 2011 benefits (if any) into cash.

Benefits built up before April 2011

If you take tax-free cash we need to make sure that your pension is at least equal to your guaranteed minimum pension (and in most cases it will be). If it is not, you will not be able to give up any of your pre-April 2011 pension for cash.

Converting part of your pension into tax-free cash will not affect the amount of pension we pay to your dependants after your death.