Frequently Asked Questions

It’s run by a trustee company, which has a board of directors who are responsible for making sure the Scheme is run in line with pensions legislation and the Scheme Rules. Some of the directors are selected by Sainsbury’s and some have been nominated by the Scheme’s members.

Yes, as long as you’re over 55.

You may have heard that the government has raised the minimum pension age (the earliest you can take your pension) to 57. This will take effect from 6 April 2028. If you’re aged 55 or 56 on that date and you haven’t yet retired, you will have to wait until you reach age 57 to start collecting your pension from the Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme.

If you have any other pensions, either personal or workplace, you should check with your providers to see what rules apply to those benefits.

Your normal retirement age in the Argos Section is age 65.

If the cash value of your Sainsbury’s pension is less than £10,000, you may be able to take it all as cash, even if you have pension savings in another scheme. If it’s worth more than £10,000, then you can only take it as cash if the combined value of all your pensions (excluding the State pension) is less than £30,000.

If you have to retire early because of ill health, you may be able to draw your pension early, at the Trustee’s discretion.

Yes, your deferred pension receives increases between when you left the Scheme (or stopped paying contributions) and when you start taking your pension. In retirement, your pension is reviewed each year in line with inflation and the Scheme Rules.

If you have any questions about how your pension will be taxed, you need to contact HMRC directly by telephone on 0300 200 3300 or visit their website at GOV.uk/tax-help

You can write to them at:
Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1AS
United Kingdom
You will need to quote the Scheme’s reference, which is: 475/VA71075 

If HMRC can’t help and you’re on a low income (up to about £380 a week), you may be able to get free professional tax advice. This includes help with filling in forms and what to do if you owe money to HMRC. Tax Aid is a charity that helps people on low incomes with tax issues. You can call them on 0345 120 3779 or visit their website at https://taxaid.org.uk

You can get defined contribution (DC) pension schemes and defined benefit (DB) pension schemes. The Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme is a DB pension scheme. You might also be paying into the Argos Group Personal Pension Plan, which is a DC pension scheme. This video explains the differences between DB and DC schemes. 

You can also have a personal pension, which you pay into, but your employer doesn’t. This will usually be a DC pension.

Whether or not you get a State pension depends on how many qualifying years of National Insurance (NI) contributions you have. To get any State pension at all, you must have a minimum of 10 qualifying years. To get the full State pension, you’ll need 35 qualifying years. If you’ve got between 10 and 35 qualifying years, you’ll get a proportionate amount of State pension. You can find out what your State pension entitlement is using the GOV.uk website.

After getting rid of the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) in April 2024, the government has now introduced two new lump sum limits. These probably won’t apply to most members but if you think you may be affected, you should consider taking financial advice. You can usually take up to 25% of your pension as a tax–free lump sum. The new Lump Sum Allowance (LSA) limits how much of your pension savings you can take as a tax-free lump sum. It is set at £268,275, unless you have previously applied to HMRC for LTA protection (in which case a higher limit may apply). There is also the Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance (LSDBA), which restricts the amount of lump sum death benefits that can be paid tax free from all registered pension schemes to £1,073,100 (unless you have LTA protection, in which case a higher limit may apply). If you take a lump sum that goes above your allowances, you’ll need to pay Income Tax on the extra amount. Your pension provider will take off the charge before you get your payment. Find out more here.

In the sad event that you need to tell us about the death of one of our members, please contact Aptia, the administrator for the Argos Section. They will send you any paperwork that needs to be completed. Click here to see what benefits are available from the Scheme on the death of a member.

We work hard to make sure that you don’t have any reason to complain about the Scheme, but if you do have a complaint, please contact Aptia, the administrator for the Argos Section, in the first instance.

If Aptia can’t resolve your issue, the Trustee has a formal process that you can use called the Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP). Aptia will send you the information you need for this.

Contact Aptia, the administrator for the Argos Section.

The Scheme pays a pension for life to its members, and if a member dies then their spouse will usually also get a pension.

The pension you will get is based on your salary and length of service in the Home Retail Group (HRG) Pension Scheme at the time it closed to new contributions (in 2013). Your pension has continued to receive annual increases since then. The HRG Scheme merged with the Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme in 2019 but this didn’t change any of the benefits you or your loved ones are entitled to receive.

In 2018, the Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme merged with another scheme, the Home Retail Group (HRG) Pension Scheme, after Sainsbury’s bought HRG, Argos’s parent company. This is why the Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme has two sections – the Sainsbury’s Section and the Argos Section.

You may have chosen to pay extra contributions to top up your pension at retirement. These are called AVCs.

If you have AVCs, you can either take them as cash at retirement or use them to provide extra income. For example, you could buy an annuity (an insurance policy that pays an income), or keep the money invested and take money out of your pot as you need it.

The MoneyHelper website has lots of information about your options for taking your AVCs. From the age of 50, you can also speak to a pensions expert at Pension Wise, a free government service that is run as part of the MoneyHelper website. 

Please note, if you do want to set up an annuity, it can take up to three months to get everything arranged, so you should tell Aptia your plans as soon as you can.

When you start to collect your pension, it will be paid as a monthly income, like your salary. Aptia, the administrator for the Argos Section, manages the pensioner payroll, so they will deduct tax before it’s paid into your account. If you think you’re paying the wrong amount of tax, you need to contact HMRC.

Yes, if you want to work beyond your normal retirement age, your pension will be increased because it will be paid to you over a shorter period of time. 

Log in to OneView to get a late retirement quotation.

Yes, you can retire any time from age 55. Your pension will be reduced if you take it early because it will be paid to you over a longer period of time.  

Log in to OneView to get an early retirement quotation. 

You may have heard that the government has raised the minimum pension age (the earliest you can take your pension) to 57. This will take effect from 6 April 2028. If you’re aged 55 or 56 on that date and you haven’t yet retired, you will have to wait until you reach age 57 to start collecting your pension from the Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme. 

If you have any other pensions, either personal or workplace, you should check with your providers to see what rules apply to those benefits.

Yes, you can exchange some of your pension for tax-free cash. Following recent changes to the Lifetime Allowance, most people will find the amount of tax-free cash they can take has been restricted to £268,275 unless they have some form of Lifetime Allowance protection. 

Log in to OneView to see how much tax-free cash is available to you. 

If you exchange any of your pension for cash, this will reduce the amount of pension you get from the Scheme. 

Log in to OneView to get a retirement quotation.

The Lifetime Allowance (LTA) is the total pension savings you can have without paying an extra tax charge. From April 2024 the LTA was abolished. At the same time, the maximum tax-free cash you can take at retirement was capped at £268,275 (or 25% of the last LTA of £1,073,100) – unless you have an earlier LTA protection (see below). 

The LTA was first introduced in 2006 and successive governments have raised or lowered it over that time. Members were able to avoid a tax charge by applying for ‘protection’ from HMRC. If you applied for protection when the LTA was higher than its final level of £1,073,100, you may be eligible to take a higher tax-free cash amount.

The Trustee of the Sainsbury’s Pension Scheme has appointed The Tracing Group to carry out a member tracing exercise. 

If you receive one of these letters, don’t be alarmed. It just means that some of your contact details may be missing or incomplete, so please don’t delay in responding to this request for information. The Tracing Group is carrying out this work on behalf of the Trustee.

Your pension benefits won’t be affected if you decide to wind down to retirement. You’ll need to speak to your line manager about reducing your working hours as there are certain criteria for this.