Securing your benefits

We wrote to you in April 2023 to let you know that we’ve made some investment changes to the Safeway Pension Scheme to make the Scheme even more secure in the future.

We did this by insuring some of the benefits in the Safeway Pension Scheme with a company called Rothesay Life Plc (Rothesay).

Purchasing an insurance policy improves the security of members’ benefits and is called a ‘buy-in’.

There will be no change for you or the benefits you will receive from the Scheme.

If you’re a deferred member, you will still receive the pension you have built-up in the Scheme when you retire and have the same choices at retirement, such as potentially taking part of your pension as a cash lump sum, or transferring your benefits out of the Scheme before retirement, if you so wish.

If you’re a pensioner or dependant member, you will continue to receive the same benefits from the Scheme as you do now.

There is also no change to who is running the Scheme and what they are responsible for.

Even though the benefits are covered by an insurance company, the Trustee remains responsible for your benefits, running the Scheme and ensuring that your benefits are paid when you retire.

You can read more about what the insurance policy means, who Rothesay are and the decisions we made when buying this policy in the ‘Securing your benefits with Rothesay’ leaflet.