Understand your member benefit statement

Your Member Benefit Statement is a vital tool for retirement planning. Learn more with this guide.

Correctional officers

BC Corrections employs two types of active members: regular members and those with a public safety designation. Members who have a public safety designation are:

• Full-time and regular part-time ambulance paramedics in CUPE Local 873
• Correctional officers, probation officers and youth probation officers who are employed in a correctional centre with BC Corrections.

Your personal information

This includes:

• Your name
• Your Person ID number
• Your date of birth
• The date you began contributing to your pension
• If you have a spouse, their name and date of birth

You can review your personal information by signing in to My Account.

Your beneficiary

Your beneficiary is the person you have named for a pension benefit if you die before you retire. If you have a spouse, they are automatically your beneficiary unless they sign a waiver.

You can update your beneficiary information by signing in to My Account.

How to read the pension estimates in your statement

There are three things to know about the pension estimates in your statement:

• The service and salary information is based on everything you have earned or accrued in the last fiscal year, up to March 31
• The service projected into the future presumes you will continue to work in your current job, at your current pay, uninterrupted, until you retire
• The earliest unreduced pension age you see listed is when you are eligible for an unreduced pension on all your service. This means if you have both public safety service and regular service in your work history, the regular service has a later early retirement age and that is the age you will see in your statement.

This section also shows estimates of your lifetime monthly pension if you stopped working last March 31 for a plan employer, left your contributions in the plan and retired on one of the dates listed.

The rule of 85

All your years of contributory service are used to calculate your eligibility to retire with an unreduced pension. This means if your age and years of contributory service equal at least 85, you can retire with an unreduced pension.

The best way to see how different retirement ages affect your pension is to use your personalized pension estimator in My Account. If you are unable to access the personalized pension estimator, please contact the plan.

Learn more about early retirement

Read the early retirement guide for correctional employees in Planning for retirement to learn more.

Do you have a former spouse?

If you have a former spouse with a right to a share of your pension, they are known as a limited member. This is important to know because the service earned and pension benefits shown on your statement will include your former spouse’s share; therefore, your actual pension benefits will be less than those shown. For more information, visit Divorce and separation or contact us for details about your pension.

Your pensionable earnings and service

This section of your statement shows:

• Your pensionable earnings—the portion of your salary used to determine your contributions to the plan
• Your pensionable service—your actual working time as a plan member over the plan’s fiscal year and since you began contributing to the plan (you earn one month of pensionable service for each full month of full-time work you complete)
• Your contributory service—the number of months you and your employer contributed to the plan (you earn one month of contributory service for each month you contribute)

Your contributions

This section of the statement shows the amount you have contributed, plus interest earned on contributions:

• Over the plan’s fiscal year to March 31
• Since you began contributing to the plan

Your contributions do not reflect the value of your pension. The value of your lifetime monthly pension is based on:

• Your pensionable service
• The average of your five highest years of salary (not necessarily the last five years)

Go to My Account to view your historical service and salary information (under the Statements tab). This will show your reported service by the employer, as well as any finalized purchases and reciprocal transfers.