Bonuses
Bonuses are linked to investment performance and are discretionary. All contributions and bonuses are guaranteed not to go down in value unless you retire or transfer before age 65.
Each year we aim to add a bonus to your PB 2014 account.
To understand how we add bonuses to your account, first we need to look at what happens to your contributions. This includes any contributions you pay, plus contributions your employer pays.
Unlike a typical ‘defined contribution’ pension pot, your account does not go down in value depending on investment markets.
Once your contributions go in, we guarantee these will not go down in value. Any bonuses we add are also guaranteed. These guarantees affect how much bonus we add each year.
If you transfer your account or retire before age 65, we may need to reduce your account. We will only do this if investment conditions are poor at the time.
What is my bonus added to?
The yearly cycle is to take your account at the end of the year, keep it invested for the following year and then add your bonus the year after that.
So, for example we take your account at the end of 2023, keep it invested during 2024 and distribute our 2024 investment performance as a bonus on 1 April 2025. We add your bonus this way to guarantee your account will not go down.
When is my bonus added?
We add bonuses on 1 April each year.
What is my bonus for April 2025?
There is a split bonus for April 2025.
A bonus of 13.25% was added to all your contributions saved in 2022 and 2023.
We added a bonus of 12% to contributions saved before 2022.
Both of these bonuses were added on 1 April 2025.
You can see your bonus building up each year on PensionsOnline. Just head to the My Membership Toolkit page, and click on the links on the right.
How do bonuses work?
We invest your account in line with the Church’s ethical investment policies, with the aim of making as much return as possible on your contributions. We use these investment returns to add a bonus.
At the end of every year, we look at how well our investments performed. If performance has been strong we will hold this bonus for a year to cover the guarantee that your pension will not go down, and then we add the bonus the following April. The nature of our investments means there may be big differences in bonuses from year to year. If our investment performance is negative, i.e., we made a loss, we will not add a bonus for that year.
Here is our current bonus policy:
- Our starting point is the percentage investment return over the calendar year, after investment expenses.
- We deduct 0.75% for our costs - we deduct this from your bonus, not from your pension.
Yearly cycle: At the end of each year, your account is kept invested for the following year. The bonus is added the year after that. We add your bonus to all the contributions you and your employer have paid in, plus any bonuses already added.
Example: Contributions made in 2023 are invested during 2024, and the bonus from 2024's performance is added on April 1, 2025.
Why is there a delay when adding bonuses?
You might notice there is a delay of 15 months before we add your bonus.
As we guarantee your account will not go down, we need to be confident we have enough money (assets) to pay your account when you are ready to take it. This is the reason for the delay.
This helps us manage the financial risks of guaranteeing your account.
Historic performance
Here are the bonuses over the last 5 years.
* the 2024 bonus was only applied to 2022 contributions.