All employees are contractually enrolled into the Plan and there are a lot of good reasons to be in your workplace pension. Firstly, your employer helps you save for retirement by paying money into your pension (on top of the money you pay in yourself). If you opt out of the workplace pension, you wouldn’t get this extra contribution.
Another reason to stay in the Plan is that the government also wants to help people save for the future, so you don’t pay tax on your pension contributions, which means it costs you less than you think. If you’re a basic rate taxpayer, every £1 you pay into your pension actually only costs you 80p. Paying your contributions using SMART reduces the cost of every £1 to 68p.
In addition to this ‘free money’, being in a workplace pension is easy. Your employer sets it all up for you, so you don’t have to think about setting up direct debits or any of the other hassles you might have in taking out a personal pension.
As a member of the Plan, you also get life cover of five times your basic annual salary. If you opt out but stay working for the Company, this life cover is reduced to one times your basic annual salary.