If an employee has opted out within 1 calendar month of being enrolled into a workplace pension scheme, they, and the employer, will be entitled to a refund of their pension contributions. If they cease active membership after this time, both employer and employee won’t be entitled to a refund.

If your employee is struggling to opt out, it’s probably best they contact us.

What to do if you receive an opt out email

If an employee requests to opt out, we’ll send an email to your admin contact, informing them to stop taking pension contributions from the employee.

You’ll need to update your payroll that the employee has opted out. You’ll let us know about this next time you upload contribution data to us.

Once you’ve marked the employee as a leaver, you’ll need to confirm you have processed their opt out through the ‘Manage scheme leavers and opt-outs’ option on your ‘Manage account’ page. Simply click the ‘acknowledge’ button next to the employee.*

What happens with the refund?

Any refunded opt-out contributions will be credited to your employer’s online account balance. This can be viewed in the ‘Account transactions’ section of your Online Services account. This credit will be deducted from the total cost of your next set of contribution data.

It’s your responsibility to refund your employee. You should do this usually within 1 calendar month of receiving a valid opt-out notice and you shouldn’t wait for the refund to come from us first. A list of employees can be downloaded from the ‘Employee details’ section of your Online Services account, which will contain the date of each employee’s opt-out period.

* Sometimes, the employee won’t appear on this screen, this will be because the opt-out has already been acknowledged by marking them as a leaver.

If tax-free cash is deferred beyond age 75, but the member dies before it’s taken, the tax-free element is lost, and any income or lump sums paid would be subject to the beneficiaries’ marginal rate of income tax. If the member was over 75 years old at the date of death or if it has been over 2 years since we were notified of the members’ death, then a tax charge will also be incurred.