Having your say about the new system

Yes, you can make your voice heard. How you do that, depends on your situation.

1. I am accruing a pension with Pensioenfonds PGB.
   You can submit your opinion to a union, trade association or works council. At work, you can ask the HR department who in your company or sector makes decisions about the new pension on behalf of the employees or how the employer will involve you in this. If you work in sectors such as graphic media, cardboard and flexible packaging, paint and/or printing ink, flower and plant wholesale, sea fishing, plastic, rubber and glue, travel or agricultural and food supply, you can also contact Pensioenfonds PGB. We can tell you which employee representatives in your sector will help decide on your new pension.
   
   
2. I am no longer accruing pension with Pensioenfonds PGB/I receive a pension benefit from Pensioenfonds PGB.
   If you are a member of a union or trade association, please contact them. If you were covered by a sectoral scheme, but are not a member of a trade association, please contact Pensioenfonds PGB. We can tell you which trade organisations in your sector will help decide on your new pension. If you receive a pension benefit, you can also contact the VVG-PGB. This association of retirees is or will be discussing the new schemes with representatives of sectors and a number of large employers.

Representatives of employers and employees in a sector or company must report their agreements to Pensioenfonds PGB before 1 October 2024. In several sectors, this must be done before 1 July 2024, so don’t wait too long if you want to give your opinion.

Yes, you can. You can pass on your opinion to the organisations that are involved in the decisions on behalf of employees, such as unions, trade organisations and works councils. If you are retired or, as a former employee, still have a pension with a pension fund, you can exercise a collective ‘right to be heard’. This means that through an association, you and others can give your opinion to the employer and employee representatives who decide on the transition of your pension. For PGB schemes, this can be done via the pensioners’ association, VVG-PGB. You can also set up your own association of former employees or retirees. You need a minimum number of people for this. The statutory rules can be found in question 5. 

Yes, you can. You can contact the accountability body via your supporters (unions, VVG and employers’ organisations), but also directly, at bestuursbureau@pensioenfondspgb.nl. The law states that the accountability body must check whether the conversion plan has sufficiently taken everyone’s interests into account, i.e. employees, former employees and pension recipients. It will take some time before the accountability body can test this and give advice. That is expected to happen in 2025. In the run-up to this, the accountability body is continuously kept informed of developments by the board of the pension fund.  

An association gives its opinion on the draft plan (‘the transition plan’) which the employer and employee representatives have drawn up for the new pension scheme and the transition of accrued pensions and pension benefits to the new pension. The transition plans for mandatory sectoral schemes must be ready by 1 July 2024. The other transition plans must be ready by 1 October 2024.

An association that wishes to exercise its right to be heard must register itself with the representatives of employers and employees in a sector or company, and must comply with the following statutory requirements:

• The association must be a legal entity. This means it is an official association.
• The articles of association must state that the association represents the interests of retirees and/or former participants.
• The association represents at least 1,000 former participants and/or retirees, or 10% of the former participants and/or retirees in the scheme.

The VVG-PGB exercises the right to be heard for its almost 15,000 members.
If you are setting up an association for the right to be heard in a specific sector or company, please let us know so we can find out how we can help you further. Please send an email to bestuursbureau@pensioenfondspgb.nl.

Because there was a lot of dissatisfaction and unrest in society about the current pension, organisations of employers and employees (‘social partners’) and the government started thinking about a new system. This resulted in a blueprint for the overhaul of employee pensions in the Netherlands. A pension that better suits today’s society: more ‘personal’ thanks to pension capital, but with sufficient mutual risk sharing. Because the Dutch feel that is important. The House of Representatives and Senate have extensively examined the plans, and there have been plenty of debates about them. Ultimately, it was decided to switch to the new pension.

Unions, employers’ organisations and the government have jointly decided to transition to a different system. Your pension with Pensioenfonds PGB is part of your terms and conditions of employment. This means you are accruing or accrued pension through your employer.

Even if you no longer work there, you will still be dealing with changes about your pension that employer and employee representatives agree on together. That’s how it’s regulated in the Netherlands. The government has put several rules into law. These rules must ensure that the transition and the pension itself are fair, careful and transparent.

That varies from situation to situation. If your pension was accrued in a scheme that applies to the entire sector, Representatives of employees and employers in that sector then make agreements about pensions. For example, they make a choice between the solidary or flexible contribution scheme and decide how much money you contribute together with your employer to accrue your pension (capital). The scheme they choose also applies to former employees and retired employees from the sector or company.

If your pension was accrued in a scheme that applies only to your (former) employer, and the pension scheme is laid down in a collective labour agreement, your (former) employer makes those agreements and choices together with the unions. If no collective labour agreement is in place, your (former) employer makes those agreements and choices together with you. Also, you cannot always refuse a reasonable proposal.

If a works council is in place, your (former) employer must always involve it. In some cases, your (former) employer can decide without you, but you must have agreed with this first.

No pension is ‘being taken away’. The change is meant to make the pension better match your expectations. Your pension is being converted into another form. Instead of ‘entitlements’ or ‘rights’, you will now have a capital, in other words: personal pension assets. According to lawyers who looked into this at the request of the government, this is permitted. New rules may be applied to your pension entitlement or right.

After the conversion, you may find that as an individual participant, you are being hit ‘disproportionately’ hard. Disproportionate means compared to other people in a similar situation. In that case, you can object. You don’t have to do anything right now. After the transition, you must submit an objection to Pensioenfonds PGB. 

• With the solidary scheme, your personal pension assets are collectively invested. You will receive the return on your share of the total assets based on your age. When you are young, you can bear more risk. You participate more in investments with a higher risk. As a result, your pension assets may fluctuate more, they can increase or decrease. If you are older, you can bear less risk. You participate more in investments with a lower risk. These are investments that are linked to interest. If you already receive benefits, there is an additional fund that can absorb major setbacks. This way, you show more solidarity towards each other.
  
  Please note: If your employer has mandatory sectoral schemes from Pension Fund PGB in place, a solidary scheme will be standard. Please contact our customer service to find out if you have a mandatory sectoral scheme.

• With the flexible scheme, you have personal pension assets for your pension and you can choose your own investment profile: slightly more risk (offensive), slightly less risk (defensive) or the standard risk (neutral). Each profile takes your age (lifecycle) into account, which means your risk decreases as you get older. If you are retiring (or already have a pension benefit upon conversion), you can choose a stable or variable pension at that time.
  
  Please note: If your employer has a non-mandatory sectoral scheme or a voluntary company scheme from Pension Fund PGB in place, representatives of employers and employees will choose which arrangement they want: solidarity or flexible. Please contact our customer service to find out which scheme you have.

• With the solidary scheme, your personal pension assets are collectively invested. You will receive the return on your share of the total assets based on your age. When you are young, you can bear more risk. You participate more in investments with a higher risk. As a result, your pension assets may fluctuate more, they can increase or decrease. If you are older, you can bear less risk. You participate more in investments with a lower risk. These are investments that are linked to interest. If you already receive benefits, there is an additional fund that can absorb major setbacks. This way, you show more solidarity towards each other.
  
  Please note: If your employer has mandatory sectoral schemes from Pension Fund PGB in place, a solidary scheme will be standard. Please contact our customer service to find out if you have a mandatory sectoral scheme.

• With the flexible scheme, you have personal pension assets for your pension and you can choose your own investment profile: slightly more risk (offensive), slightly less risk (defensive) or the standard risk (neutral). Each profile takes your age (lifecycle) into account, which means your risk decreases as you get older. If you are retiring (or already have a pension benefit upon conversion), you can choose a stable or variable pension at that time.
  
  Please note: If your employer has a non-mandatory sectoral scheme or a voluntary company scheme from Pension Fund PGB in place, representatives of employers and employees will choose which arrangement they want: solidarity or flexible. Please contact our customer service to find out which scheme you have.

Pension funds already invest and that is not going to change in the future. What will change is that a pension fund will soon need fewer reserves. A reserve is a buffer or a piggy bank that is set aside. Currently, the pension fund must protect the entire collective against bad times, including the young people who can bear a bit more risk. Because there will soon be fewer reserves, as a participant you will notice more of the good and bad times on the financial markets. If the investments are doing well, the value of your capital will increase. If investments are doing poorly, you will soon notice. 

As long as you are relatively young and still a long way off from retirement, it is not a problem if your capital fluctuates a little more. Only when retirement is close is it important for your pension capital to provide a predictable pension. Because that is when you start planning your financial retirement, and you need more stability. Your age is therefore taken into account when we invest. This is also called life cycle: the younger, the more risk and the older, the less risk. Less risk means that investments are chosen in such a way that they are no longer dependent on the interest rate. Besides share prices, that is the biggest influence on the amount of your pension.  Less risk ensures a more stable expected pension.

For retirees it is usually also important to have a predictable income. It is harder for them to absorb a big drop compared to people who are still working. With the solidary scheme, retirees don’t have a choice: they receive a variable pension with protection against reduction. With the flexible scheme, retirees can choose between a stable or variable pension. The differences are listed below:

• Variable pension with protection against reduction 
  With Pensioenfonds PGB’s solidary scheme, retirees receive a variable pension that has been made more stable thanks to its reduction-absorbing capacity. This means that in the case of collective investing, attempts are made to achieve a positive return, so the pension can (partly) rise along with the prices. If the investment result is very disappointing, there is a special fund to prevent reductions in pension benefits until the fund is empty. When transitioning to the new pension, some money is immediately deposited from the existing reserve into the new fund (‘the solidarity reserve’).

• Stable or variable pension in a flexible scheme 
  With the flexible scheme, retirees can choose between a stable or variable pension. A stable pension is an amount that fluctuates slightly with the economy. You can compare it to the current pension benefit. This means the pension capital is invested collectively and the pension is not increased or decreased straight away. That happens only if it is truly possible or needed. 
  
  A variable pension fluctuates more with good and bad times. If the results are disappointing and the pension is going to be reduced, Pensioenfonds PGB’s flexible scheme offers no special fund to limit a reduction. This is taken into account when distributing the reserve: you will receive a higher pension, which can be reduced more quickly and at a greater extent. Those who find this an undesirable risk can opt for a stable pension.

Representatives of employees and employers in your sector or company agree whether your pension transitions to the new pension system or whether your current pension will be maintained. Under current benefit schemes, a transition is the legal standard. Deviating from this by not transitioning is possible, but only if representatives of employees and employers can substantiate that this is the wiser option.

No, you can’t. Accruing a pension will only be possible in the new pension system. This is laid down in the law and has been agreed on by employers’ and employees’ organisations and the government. They want to ensure that as many people as possible will be included in the new pension system together, to share risks and achieve cost benefits. Because for employees, these are strong points of the Dutch pension system. The risks include financial risks, but also personal setbacks such as death at a young age or occupational disability. We will also ensure your individual kitty does not run empty if you live for a very long time.

No, you can’t. If the representatives of employees and employers in your sector or the company where you work choose to convert the pensions, you can’t object to this individually. This is what has been agreed on in law.

If there are no longer representatives of employers and employees to make decisions, former employees or retirees will be left behind in the old pension system.  Pensioenfonds PGB is discussing this issue with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. So far, there is no alternative to this.

Yes, you will also be included if you already receive a pension. Transitioning means that your accrued pension or pension benefit is converted into a personal pension capital. You will not lose your pension. Your capital will soon fluctuate more in line with your investments. Each year, we will tell you how your pension capital is developing and what you can expect. The solidary scheme includes a special fund to absorb pension reductions in the event of major setbacks. With the flexible benefit, you can choose between a stable (fixed) benefit or a variable benefit. You can read more about it in answer 9.

If your pension transitions to the new system, the choice previously made by employers and employees for solidary or flexible will also have consequences for your pension benefit. You can find out how it works here. If you would like to give your opinion after reading this information, please contact your or a union or trade association that helps decide on the scheme. Alternatively, contact the VVG-PGB. If that doesn’t get you anywhere, you can consider contacting your old employer. Perhaps it is open to participation from former employees and/or retirees in the choice of the scheme.

Based on all plans from the sectors and companies, we draw up a plan for the conversion of all pensions at Pensioenfonds PGB. This will explain why the way we do it is ‘balanced’. Balanced means that the interests of all groups (employees, former employees, retirees) have been weighed and the result is fair and explainable. To prevent any surprises, we have already worked out how we will do this: what conditions we will apply to ensure that all is fair. This information is available to representatives of employers and employees when establishing the new scheme.
Furthermore, the plan is verified by the accountability body. This is a council with representatives of employees, retirees and employers. The supervisory board of Pensioenfonds PGB and supervisory authority De Nederlandsche Bank also verify our plan. 

Want to join the debate about the new pension system? Read the questions and answers about how you can make your voice heard.

The transition is still a long way off: Pensioenfonds PGB expects to make the transition on 1 January 2027. By then, we will send you information about your personal pension before and after the transition. If you have any questions, or think a mistake has been made, please let us know and we will find out what’s going on. You don’t have to do anything right now. If you’re unable to reach an agreement with us because you’re not satisfied with our explanation or solution, you can contact an external, independent dispute body. You can also take the matter to court.