{"id":92030,"date":"2025-09-29T05:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/92030\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T05:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:50:13","slug":"employers-urged-to-get-staff-to-sign-note-if-they-opt-out-of-their-pension-plan-to-avoid-future-disputes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/92030\/","title":{"rendered":"Employers urged to get staff to sign note if they opt out of their pension plan to avoid future disputes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The auto-enrolment pension scheme, known as My Future Fund, is scheduled to begin in January. It is generally accepted that higher-paid workers, or those in the 40pc tax bracket, would be worse off if they end up in My Future Fund versus a company pension scheme in circumstances where their employers offer one.<\/p>\n

Joe Creegan, head of corporate life and pensions at Zurich Ireland, said there is a scenario in 10 or 20 years where two colleagues in the 40pc tax bracket on the same salary could have vastly different outcomes as they approach retirement, with the one on a workplace pension likely better off than the other who was in the state scheme.<\/p>\n

The employee who is in the auto-enrolment scheme could claim their employer did not appropriately tell them about its workplace pension offer, potentially leading to a dispute for the company.<\/p>\n

\n

I might have been better off in the occupational scheme but nobody told me<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Creegan believes employers must look at ways to protect themselves from future disputes. He encouraged workplaces to \u201cget something in writing\u201d from staff saying that they were offered an occupational pension but didn\u2019t take it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople might be more likely to look at this at the point of retirement and realise, \u2018Well, actually, I might have been better off in the occupational scheme but nobody told me\u2019,\u201d Creegan explained.<\/p>\n

Creegan was speaking as Zurich published research into perceptions of the auto-enrolment scheme.<\/p>\n

Strong public support for auto-enrolment was identified, but significant knowledge gaps remain. More than eight in 10 workers either don\u2019t know or are unsure about how auto-enrolment will affect them, Zurich found.<\/p>\n

The research also found 82pc of employers offer a workplace pension scheme, with average employee enrolment just 42pc. This means over half of employees have not taken up their employer\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n

Zurich\u2019s research also found over a third of private sector workers still have no private pension savings.<\/p>\n

\n

Many workers still feel unsure about what auto-enrolment means for them<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Creegan said auto-enrolment was an important step toward improving pension coverage in Ireland. However, education on options was key.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s encouraging to see public support for the initiative \u2013 but the research also makes clear that a lot more needs to be done to ensure people understand what\u2019s coming and how to navigate their options.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany workers still feel unsure about what auto-enrolment means for them \u2013 especially when it comes to the role of private pensions, tax relief, and employer contributions. Auto-enrolment can complement existing workplace pension schemes and will make a real difference to workers who currently cannot access an employer scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n

My Future Fund is designed to help over 800,000 workers save for their retirement.<\/p>\n

All employees not already in an occupational pension scheme, aged between 23 and 60 and earning over \u20ac20,000 across all of their employments, will be automatically enrolled in the new scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The auto-enrolment pension scheme, known as My Future Fund, is scheduled to begin in January. It is generally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[79,18,19,17,2090,234,235,1265,59779],"class_list":{"0":"post-92030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-pensions","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-sean-pollock","16":"tag-zurich-insurance-group"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}