Benefit statements –how much your retirement savings are worth now

As a member of the AF Access Retirement Fund, you get benefit statements sent to you at least once a year. If you have policies with other insurers, you will get benefit statements from them too.

These statements provide you with important information that you need to use to plan for your financial future. There is no universal format for benefit statements, so, each company will present the information in your benefit statement to you in a different way. In this article, we highlight the most important details to look out for and what this information means to you.

Personal details or information

This section is usually up front and tells you what personal information the fund administrator or insurer has recorded for you in their system. Every time you receive a benefit statement you need to check that all your personal details are correct. If there are errors, contact the provider so that you can update this information. If, for example, your cell number is wrong, it could cause delays when you are waiting for a benefit to be paid out.

Investment details

This section on the fund benefit statement will give you your opening and closing balances in the fund. It tells you how much money you’ve saved for retirement at the start of the period it covers and the total amount of money you’ve saved by the end of the reporting period. These figures are important because they tell you how much you’ve saved for the year. You can subtract the opening balance from the closing balance to keep track of your growth from year to year.

The investment portfolios your savings are invested in are also shown in this section.

Expenses or costs

Expenses are made up of administration, reinsurance premiums (for example life, disability and funeral cover premiums), as well as any other fees or deductions. It’s good to keep an eye on these amounts to make sure the expenses or costs are being managed cost effectively. Just remember that life and disability cover through your retirement fund are generally lower than individual policies. It’s a worthwhile expense to protect you and your family.

Investment returns

Your investment value in rands may increase or decrease over the reporting period. Keep an eye on this amount but, at the same time, keep in mind that when saving for retirement you want to invest for long periods for your money to grow – the longer the better. Over short periods like three months and one year the value of your investments will go up and down but over longer periods of five years or more we expect the value of investments to grow. For this reason, it’s better to focus on periods like five or ten years when you look at the returns on your retirement savings. Your investment value tells you if you are on track with your retirement goals. Use My Retirement Picture (https://retirements.digital.alexanderforbes.co.za/introduction/1/) to see what pension you can expect to get when you retire.

Benefit statements are available online

Good news – you have access to your benefit statements 24/7. All you need to do is register for AF Online. Once registered you can download your benefit statement at any time of the night or day.

This is how you register

Important

The investment return shown is earned on your total savings over the period of the statement.

Important note:

This may take a couple of days.

A useful benefit statement should answer these important questions:

How much did I start with?

How much did I contribute?

What growth did I get over the period?

What fees did I pay?

What is my closing balance?

Quick tip 3

If you are struggling to understand your benefit statement, take it to your financial adviser or a My Money Matters consultant. They will be able to explain everything to you so that you know what to look out for in future benefit statements.

We measure how well a portfolio is performing by comparing it to a benchmark1. We can see that the portfolio is better than its benchmark over all periods.