Dictionary
Account
This is your personal account in the Investing plan, which is used to provide benefits when you retire. Its value is made up of contributions paid to the account, adjusted up or down depending on how it is invested, and to take account of expenses.
Annuity
This is a regular income paid for with a cash sum – so, if you buy a pension with the money in your account, that is a type of annuity. An "annuity price" is the amount it costs to buy a particular level of income.
Asset class
A type of investment – for example, shares, bonds or property.
Fixed-term voluntary contributions
This is a type of extra contribution made to your account through the Unilever Contribution Arrangement – so you save on National Insurance as well as tax. To benefit from this additional saving, you must commit to a reduction in your salary equal to these contributions for a minimum of at least a year.
Unilever currently also passes on some or all of its National Insurance saving into your account.
Fund
This is an investing option in the Investing plan which you can choose for some or all of your account. (But in this website, you will also see the word 'Fund' used to mean the Unilever UK Pension Fund.)
Index
This is a figure which is used to measure asset class performance. So, particular indexes are used as 'benchmarks' (or target returns) for measuring how well investments perform.
Investment provider
This is the insurance company (or other investment provider) which provides the investments that make up the fund choices. The current provider is Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Limited ('Fidelity'). The investment provider may be changed from time to time.
Main plan
This is the Unilever plan in which you build up your pension benefits, that is the Final salary plan.
Plan Viewer
This website is Fidelity's online investing service. It contains your account details, and you can use it to make changes to your fund choices. You can also find more general information about the fund choices available. You can log in to Plan Viewer on the Fidelity website at www.fidelitypensions.co.uk.
Unilever
Unilever is the Unilever Group company that employs you and has agreed to take part in the Unilever UK Pension Fund. But, in some places in this website it means Unilever PLC.
Unilever Contribution Arrangement
This is the normal way of making contributions to the plan. Instead of you paying contributions from your salary, Unilever pays an amount equal to what your contributions would have been straight into the plan. You agree that your pay is reduced by the same amount. In this way, you and Unilever make savings on the National Insurance that would be payable if you made the contributions yourself. Further details are in the General information guide.
Variable additional voluntary contributions
This is a type of extra contribution made outside the Unilever Contribution Arrangement – so you save on tax, but not National Insurance. They are more flexible than fixed-term voluntary contributions.