YOUR WORKPLACE SAVINGS

As you approach retirement it's helpful to understand what your choices are and how you can take your retirement benefits giving you greater flexibility over your retirement income. These rules are applicable to those pension schemes which have adopted the new rules. While it is not possible for you to access these new pension flexibilities directly from the AVC arrangement, in conjunction with the Civil Service Pension Scheme, Scottish Widows have introduced a new process that allows you to transfer out of your AVC arrangement into an alternative personal pension arrangement provided by Scottish Widows that can facilitate the pension freedoms.

Further information about the pension flexibilities can be found on our pension options page.

Encashment - No value restriction

Please call our retirement hub on 0345 835 6644 to initiate this process. The call handler will need to take some information and take you through a number of steps to allow Scottish Widows to settle your benefits.

Alternatively, you can print off our form and send it to us to initiate the process. The form will move your funds out of the AVC to the new arrangement. Upon receipt of your policy documentation, you will then need to call us to capture the remaining information to settle your policy. Note your funds will be placed 100% into our cash fund ready for you to draw your benefits.

Claim discharge form (PDF, 77KB)

IMPORTANT: When contacting us, please remember to state if future contributions are still to be paid into your AVC arrangement.

Drawdown - Fund value > £10,000

Our retirement hub will discuss your options and give you facts about your policy. If you intend to use a full drawdown facility, the call handler will need to place you into an alternative pension vehicle to facilitate this. It is likely that we will need to schedule a call to talk you through the process and capture all the necessary information. We will also cover off the verbal legal declarations/agreements required to proceed. This pension vehicle is charged differently to your AVC arrangement.

Please note this process will take 4 weeks from start to finish but could be longer depending on how long it will take for the form to be completed and returned to us.