Improvements as of 01.01.2024

Dear insured members of the Pension Fund Swiss Re

We are very pleased to present two improvements to your pension plan that will take effect on January 1, 2024.

Employees now save in the pension fund from as early as age 20

To strengthen retirement savings, the Board of Trustees, with the approval of the employer, has decided to introduce savings for young members as early as age 20, significantly improving retirement savings for those under 25.

The employer will transfer a monthly contribution of 9.5% of the insured salary^[1] to the 20–24-year-olds' personal savings account with the pension fund from January 1, 2024. This contribution corresponds to an indirect salary increase. In this way, young insured can save for their old age earlier and increase their later retirement pension. Like the other insured members of the Swiss Re Pension Fund, they can now also make additional provisions for their old age with their own savings contributions, choosing a contribution of 9.5%, 4.8% or 0.0% of their insured salary.

As saving at a young age is very rewarding due to the compound interest effects, the later pension increases by approx. 11%^[2] for a full contribution period.

 

The reduction of the coordination deduction leads to a higher insured salary for all

To strengthen the retirement provision for all insured persons, the coordination deduction will also be reduced to CHF 17,000 (for a 100% workload) as of January 1, 2024. As a result, Pension Fund Swiss Re reduces the statutory BVG coordination deduction of CHF 25,725^[3] by approximately one third.

This measure increases the insured salary and, therefore, the absolute savings contributions of each insured person. Since Swiss Re pays 18.5% of the respective insured salary into the pension fund for each insured person as a savings contribution, the employer's savings contribution for all insured persons with a 100% workload increases annually by approx. CHF 1,500.

As an insured person, you can decide for yourself how much you would like to contribute to your personal pension plan by selecting the employee contribution percentages of 9.5%, 4.8% or 0.0% of the insured salary.

Insured persons with lower incomes thus increase - relatively speaking - their later retirement benefits at an above-average rate.

In the table below, you will find examples of the percentage by which the retirement pension will increase for various annual incomes because of the reduced coordination deduction for a full contribution period.

 

Annual salary in CHF	Increase in expected retirement pension in %
60'000	23.2%
80'000	14.7%
100'000	10.8%
120'000	8.5%
150'000	6.5%
180'000	5.2%
200'000	4.6%
250'000	3.6%

 

At this point, a big thank you to Swiss Re, which has agreed to support these two measures and thus improve the retirement provision for all insured persons.