Investing with your pension

The default investment style

There is a ‘default’ investment style for your pension scheme. If you do not make another choice, we will invest on your behalf in accordance with this default investment style. We have reached an agreement with your employer regarding most default options for investing in your pension scheme. But you may make alternative choices yourself for a number of components. This will allow you to align the investment style with your own preferences and situation. The overview below shows you the default investment style for each component. And whether you can deviate from the default. You can read more about your options for deviating from the default investment style under ‘Choices’.

Component	Default* investment style	May I deviate from this? (your investment choices)
Investing in a lifecycle or ‘Self-investment'	Investing in a lifecycle	Depends on employer
Type of investment	Employer’s choice	Yes
Investment risk	Balanced**	Yes
Risk reduction to fixed or variable	Fixed benefit	Yes
Risk reduction to Dutch state pension (AOW) or retirement age	Employer’s choice	Yes

* Pensioen Plus applies the default investment style that you chose for your Persoonlijk Pensioen Plan.
** Your employer may have chosen another default.

Investing in a lifecycle

We invest on your behalf in a lifecycle by default. This means that we automatically reduce the risks of your investment-linked pension as your retirement date approaches. We do this by investing a progressively smaller part of your pension money in higher-risk investments (such as shares). And an increasingly larger part in our matching funds. The NN Liability Matching Funds reduce the risk of a low market rate when purchasing your pension benefit. They protect your pension in two ways:

• These investments have a lower risk, they are ‘risk-averse’. The more of your pension capital we invest in this way, the lower the risk of a sharp drop in your built-up pension. But there is also less chance that it will grow significantly. This means your pension will probably grow less in the years prior to your retirement date.
• The matching funds reduce the risk of a low market interest rate. On your retirement date, you will use your pension capital to buy a benefit. The amount of your benefit will depend on the market interest rate at that time and other factors. Are interest rates low? Then you will need more capital to purchase the same pension. The NN Liability Matching Funds reduce this interest rate risk. This is because these investments increase in value if interest rates fall. The opposite is also true: if interest rates increase, then the investment value will fall. However, you will also need less capital to buy the same pension.

Please note! The NN Liability Matching Funds are investment funds: we invest your capital, so you always run some risk.

A number of defaults have been included in your pension scheme for investing in a lifecycle. The table shows you which components you can deviate from in order to make a choice that suits your personal preferences.

Type of investment

The type of investment represents our approach to investing and how we spread the risks. There are two types of investment:

• Index-tracking (Dutch only)
• Actively Managed (Dutch only)

Your employer determines which type of investment applies by default to your pension scheme. See tier 2 of Pension 1-2-3, under ‘Which choices do you have?’. You can always opt for the other type of investment.

The current type of investment in which we invest for you can be found at mijn.nn Financial Future. Click on mijn.nn at the top right of this screen to log in, and then click on the name of your pension plan to go to Financial Future. You can find your current investment style by clicking on ‘Investments for my pension’ at the top under ‘Go to’.

Investment risk

Within the type of investment, we can invest in higher-risk and lower-risk investments on your behalf. The higher the risk we take when investing on your behalf, the higher your pension can be. And the lower your pension can be if the results of the investments fall short of expectations. Our default method of investment is according to the ‘balanced’ investment risk. Under conditions, your employer can choose the default investment risk for your pension scheme. In that case, your employer can choose from three options, ranging from lower risk to higher risk.

• more cautious
• balanced
• more ambitious

See tier 2 of Pension 1-2-3 under ‘Which choices do you have?’ for the investment risk that applies as the default for your pension scheme.

You can make another choice yourself. In that case, you have two additional options for lower-risk or even higher-risk investments: ‘more cautious +’ and ‘more ambitious +’. You can read more about this under the tab ‘Choices’.

Reducing risk to a fixed or variable benefit

Investing in lifecycles means that we gradually reduce the investment risk as your retirement date or your Dutch state retirement age (AOW age) approaches. This is because at that point there will be less and less time to reverse any possible setbacks in the investments. We reduce the higher-risk and lower-risk investments to fit a fixed pension benefit for you by default. This means are investing almost all your pension money in risk-averse funds on your retirement or AOW age. With this fixed pension benefit, your pension money will no longer be used to invest following your retirement date.

You can make another choice yourself: you can opt to reduce the risk to a variable benefit. This is a benefit whereby a portion of your pension money is invested following your retirement date. You can read more about this under the tab ‘Choices’.

Reducing risk until your retirement age or your Dutch state retirement age (AOW age)

The retirement age in your pension scheme and your AOW age are usually no longer the same. Your employer decides whether we reduce the risk by default until the retirement date in your pension scheme or until your AOW age. But you can make the other choice yourself.

Choosing your own investment funds (‘Self-investment’)

Your employer can also give you the option of choosing your investment funds yourself (‘Self-investment’). We call this ‘extended investment freedom’. If you opt for Self-investment, we will not invest in a lifecycle on your behalf. By choosing this option, you are yourself responsible for your investments. It is therefore also up to you to make sure that the degree of risk exposure is right for you.
If your employer does not offer this option, we will always invest in a lifecycle on your behalf. This is called ‘limited investment freedom’.

Whether your Persoonlijk Pensioen Plan offers extended investment freedom is shown in tier 2 of Pension 1-2-3, under ‘What choices do you have?’ In the case of the Pensioen Continu Plan, you can always opt for Self-investment. In the case of Pensioen Plus, you can opt for Self-investment if you can also do so for your Persoonlijk Pensioen Plan (your basic scheme). You can read more about choosing your own investment funds under the ‘Self-investment’ tab.

Investment choices at a glance

You can make choices yourself regarding your investments. Depending on the agreements with your employer, you can choose:

• 1
  how you want to have your pension money invested (type of investment);
• 2
  the amount of exposure to risk with which you want to have your pension money invested (investment risk);
• 3
  the degree to which you want the risk reduced as your retirement date gets closer (risk reduction);
• 4
  whether you want to have the investment risk reduced until your Dutch state retirement age (AOW age) or your retirement age.

Choice 1: type of investment

The type of investment is the way in which we invest on your behalf. You can choose between two types of investment:

• Index-tracking: we invest in index funds of reputable providers. An index fund is an investment fund whose aim is to achieve a return that is approximately equal to that of a specific index (e.g. the AEX index or MSCI World Index). This index is the ‘benchmark’ used to compare the results of the index funds. Read more about the Index-tracking type of investment (Dutch only).
• Actively Managed: we invest in funds with which NN Investment Partners expects to outperform a certain index (such as the AEX Index or the MSCI World Index). This is known as ‘active investing’. This index is the benchmark against which the results of active investment funds are compared. Read more about the Actively Managed type of investment (Dutch only). This index is the ‘benchmark’ used to compare the results of active investment funds. Read more about the Actively Managed type of investment (Dutch only).

Choice 2: investment risk

You determine yourself the risk that is a better fit for you. For this, you first need to determine your risk profile using our online risk profiler. Doing so lets you know how much risk you can incur with your pension. And how much risk you wish to incur. But you can opt to deviate from this risk profile and to invest with lower or higher risk exposure. You can change your choice at any time up to your retirement date.

You have five options:

• more cautious +: you can or want to incur the least amount of risk possible that your pension investments fall in value while you are accruing pension. You accept that your investments will therefore rise less in value when investment results are good.
• more cautious: you can or want to incur less risk that your pension investments fall in value while you are accruing pension. You accept that your investments will therefore rise less in value when investment results are good.
• balanced: you are seeking a balance between the chance of your pension investments rising in value and the risk of them falling in value. You want a good likelihood that your investments will rise in value while you are accruing pension. But you cannot or do not want to incur much risk that the value of your investments will fall short of expectations if investments perform poorly.
• more ambitious: you would like a greater opportunity to benefit from a rise in value of your pension investments while you are accruing pension. And you can and want to incur more risk that they will fall in value. You are confident that future returns on investments will be good. And you accept that the value of your investments can be lower than expected if your investments perform poorly.
• more ambitious +: You want an opportunity to benefit from the highest possible value of your pension investments while you are accruing pension. And you can and want to incur considerably more risk that your investments can also fall substantially in value. You are confident that future returns on investments will be good. And you accept that the value of your investments can be substantially lower than expected if your investments perform poorly.

Specific lifecycles are linked to each risk profile.

Choice 3: risk reduction

We will gradually reduce the risk exposure of your investments as your retirement date approaches. This is regardless of whether you currently have your pension money invested in a more cautious or more ambitious lifecycle. You can read how this works precisely under the tab ‘Default’ under the heading ‘Investing in a lifecycle’.

We will start reducing risk between 20 and 10 years before the retirement age or your Dutch state pension (AOW) age, depending on the type of investment and your lifecycle. We will inform you about this immediately before we start reducing the risk.

Reducing the risk to a greater or lesser degree

By default we gradually reduce the higher- and lower-risk investments to a fixed pension benefit. Just before your retirement date, we will then be investing almost all your money in the matching funds. These investments are risk-averse: they have a lower risk.

However, you can also choose to have your investment risk reduced to a lesser extent. Suppose you want a variable pension benefit from your retirement date, with 30% being invested. We then reduce the higher- and lower-risk investments to fit this benefit on the retirement or your AOW age. We then invest almost 70% in matching funds on your retirement date.

You can determine the risk reduction that suits you with the help of the risk profiler. This is because the risk reduction is linked to your risk profile. You have the following options to reduce the investment risk until the retirement or your AOW age:

More cautious +	More cautious	Balanced	More ambitious	Ambitieuzer +	⇐ accrual benefit ⇓
Reduce risk to a fixed benefit	Reduce risk to a fixed benefit	Reduce risk to a fixed benefit	Reduce risk to a fixed benefit	Reduce risk to a fixed benefit	Fixed
	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 15% invested	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 15% invested	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 15% invested	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 15% invested	Variable: defensive
		Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 30% invested	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 30% invested	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 30% invested	Variable: neutral
			Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 45% invested	Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 45% invested	Variable: offensive
				Reduce risk to a variable benefit with 60% invested	Variable: very offensive

Fixed or variable pension benefit

You will have another choice to make on your retirement date:

• Variable pension benefit: we will continu to invest part of your pension capital after your retirement date. The amount of your benefit will depend on how your investments perform. In other words, your benefit can rise and fall. We call this variable pension benefit. With the variable pension benefit of Nationale-Nederlanden, you can choose whether you want to continue to invest 15%, 30% 45% or 60% of your pension capital. The remainder of your benefit is a fixed amount. Please note : you can only choose a variable benefit at your retirement date if it matches your risk profile at that time.
• Fixed pension benefit: we will no longer invest your pension capital after your retirement date. You will know the exact amount of your benefit for its entire duration. We call this a fixed pension benefit. With the fixed pension benefit of Nationale-Nederlanden, you will know exactly what you can expect. You can always choose a fixed benefit at your retirement date.

See more information about our pension benefit: Persoonlijke Pensioenuitkering (Dutch only).
You can also opt to buy your benefit from another pension insurance company on your retirement date.

Give some thought to the following now

It would be wise to start thinking now about investing after your retirement date. You can then choose the risk reduction rate that is right for your situation. You will not make your final decision on continued investment until your retirement date.

• If you think you will want a fixed pension benefit, you can have the higher- and lower-risk investments reduced (almost) completely. We then invest almost all your pension money in risk-averse investments.
• Do you think you will prefer a variable pension benefit when you retire? And would you like to invest 30% of your pension capital at the start of your benefit, for example? If you have the balanced, more ambitious or more ambitious + lifecycle, then we can reduce the lower-risk and higher-risk investments to fit a variable benefit with 30% being invested. However, you will run the risk of poor investment results just prior to your retirement date. What if you continue to invest after your retirement date as you intended? Then you may be able to make up for all or part of the poor investment results.
  Please note: if you nevertheless decide on a fixed benefit, then you will run two risks:
  • You can no longer make up for any losses just prior to your retirement date after you retire, because you will no longer be investing.
  • We will sell all of your higher- and lower risk investments at once on your retirement date. If the prices of these investments are low at that point, then your pension may be lower than expected.

Choice 4: reduction until Dutch state pension (AOW) or retirement age

We can reduce the risk for you until the retirement date in your pension scheme or your AOW age. It is recommended that the age for reduction is in line as much as possible with the age at which you think you will actually retire. If we reduce too early, your investments will have less time in which to deliver returns. But if we reduce too late, you will incur too much risk just before your retirement date.

Adjusting your lifecycle investments

You can make and submit different choices regarding your investments. In that case, we will adjust your investments as quickly as possible for you. The way you submit adjustments depends on the type of pension scheme. Read more about this below. You can read how to submit your choices if you opt to choose your investment funds yourself under ‘Self-investment’.

Adjusting investments for your Persoonlijk Pensioen Plan

You can set your risk profile via mijn.nn. You can then calculate what the expected consequences will be for your pension if you adjust your investment choice. You will be able to submit your new investment choices online immediately.

You can find the risk profiler at mijn.nn Financial Future. Click on mijn.nn in this screen at the top right to log in. If you have not yet created an account or you have forgotten your login details, we will help you on that screen. If you are logged in, click on the name of your pension scheme to go to Financial Future. You can find the risk profiler by clicking on ‘Investment choices’ at the top under ‘Go to’.

Submit your choice immediately

When you have determined your risk profile, you can choose whether you want to invest according to this profile. As long as you are not yet retired, you do not have to invest according to your risk profile. You can also make a different choice, for example investing with more or less risk, or with a higher or lower risk reduction rate.

You can adjust your investment choices at any time through to your retirement date. However, you always need to complete the risk profiler first. Or to have done so recently. The same applies if you choose your investment funds yourself. Read more about this under ‘Self-investment’.

Understanding your options first

Would you like to see what a specific choice might mean for your pension? You can perform calculations with your pension details in mijn.nn Financial Future. This will give you more insight into your options. If you then decide to submit your choice, you will first have to complete the risk profiler. This will show you whether your choice suits your wishes and possibilities.

Adjusting investments for your Pensioen Plus or Pensioen Continu Plan

For your Pensioen Continu Plan or Pensioen Plus you can set your risk profile with the form ‘Risicoprofielbepaler – Index Volgend & Actief Beheerd’ (Dutch only) that is available for download at the bottom of this page.

Subsequently, you can submit your preferred new investment choice using the form ‘Keuzeformulier beleggen in een lifecycle – Index Volgend & Actief Beheerd’ (Dutch only) that is available for download at the bottom of this page.

You can adjust your investment choices at any time through to your retirement date. However, you always need to complete the risk profiler first. Or to have done so recently.

If you make no choice

Have you not set a risk profile? If so, we will invest in the default lifecycle associated with your pension scheme. And we will almost entirely reduce the higher-risk and lower-risk investments in the years before the retirement age or your AOW age. This is consistent with a fixed benefit from your retirement date.

You may have set your risk profile and made your own investment choices in the past and you may not have adjusted them since. If so, we will invest according to those choices until you submit new investment choices. If something has changed in your personal circumstances or if you think that this way of investing no longer suits you for some reason, we recommend that you set your risk profile again.

Downloads

• Keuzeformulier beleggen in een lifecycle Index Volgend-Actief Beheerd (0,1 mb)
• Risicoprofielbepaler Index Volgend-Actief Beheerd (0,1 mb)

Choosing your own investment funds

Your employer/ex-employer can give you the option of choosing investment funds yourself. In that case, you can decide yourself which of the funds available in your pension scheme we invest in on your behalf. In such a situation, we will not invest in a lifecycle for you. We call this ‘Self-investment’. Check tier 2 of Pension 1-2-3, under ‘Which choices do you have?' to see whether you have this option.

Personal responsibility for your investments

If you opt to choose your investment funds yourself, then you are personally responsible for your investments. It is up to you to decide on the level of risk that is right for you. We will not automatically reduce your investment risk as your retirement date gets closer. It is important that you understand investing if you opt for Self-investment. You will then be better able to assess the risks. And you can reduce your risk as your retirement date gets closer, which would be wise indeed.

More information about Self-investment

If you want to know more about choosing your own investment funds or if you want to submit a new fund choice, you will find all the information you need on the Choosing your own investment funds page.

The costs of adjusting investments

Are we investing for you in a lifecycle? And do you want us to invest your capital in a different lifecycle? Then we will change your investments free of charge.

You can change the type of investment free of charge. However, be aware that you will pay higher costs in the Actively Managed type of investment for the active asset management of your investments by NN Investment Partners.

Do you choose investment funds yourself? And do you want us to invest your capital in different funds? Then you may be charged costs if we change your investments. See the information on your type of investment for more details on the costs involved. You will find links to the types of investment in the menu at the top right of this page.