Upon the start of employment

You are in good hands at LSR, which is the oldest pension fund in Iceland, and the largest in terms of assets.

With LSR, you earn pension rights that are paid for the rest of your life, but you can start taking a pension from the age of 60.

You also gain rights to a disability pension, which can be particularly valuable if your work capacity is reduced early in your working life.

If you pass away, your spouse and children may be entitled to payments from your pension until the youngest child reaches the age of 22.

To do so, log in to My Pages.

On the "Pension" page, you will see the table "Paid premiums in LSR’s Division A" where all premium payments to the fund are displayed.

Review your most recent premium payments and check if the amount matches your payslip.

It is normal for it to take up to a month from the date of payment until premiums are paid to the fund.

If payments are not received or if something is incorrect, contact your employer or LSR's customer service representative.

If you are not already saving into private pension, we recommend that you start immediately. The earlier you start, the larger the fund will be, which will be available for withdrawal as you see fit from the age of 60.

It’s your choice where you keep your private pension savings, but LSR’s Private Pension is a good option. The fund is entirely owned by fund members, and therefore all benefits from the fund's activities go directly to fund members. You don't have to pay any fees, initial costs or change costs, and all premiums go directly into your savings from the first payment.

The private pension fund is managed by LSR's experienced asset management team, which has delivered good long-term returns.

If you were paying into LSR's private pension in your previous job and want to continue doing so, you can do one of the following:

• Fill out a new private pension agreement at LSR, where the new employer is specified, and LSR then sends the agreement to the new employer. This is likely to be the easiest and fastest way.
• If you were saving into LSR's Private Pension, you can contact LSR and request that the current agreement be forwarded to a new employer.
• Tell your new employer that you have a private pension agreement with LSR and want to continue paying into it. 

If the employer agrees to pay private pension savings without having the agreement to hand, their payments to the LSR private pension fund will go into the correct account in your name.

They are a good option whether you are refinancing a previous mortgage or buying a new property. LSR offers both indexed and non-indexed loans with flexible payment terms.

Division A has two types of rights accrual. Roughly speaking, the division is this:

Equal accrual: Those who started payments to LSR’s Division A or Brú before June 1, 2017, and have paid continuously since then.

Age-related accrual: Those who started payments to the division after 1 June, 2017, or have stopped payments for more than 12 consecutive months.

For fund members with equal accrual, it is good to keep the following in mind when changing jobs:

• Premiums in equal accrual provide more valuable rights with age. Therefore, it can be important for those who have been in equal accrual to continue it until retirement.
• If your new employer is predominantly funded by tax revenue, mandatory service revenue or contributions, you will continue to earn equal rights, without any special action on your part.
• If, however, your new employer is not predominantly funded in this way, they will have to pay a special additional pension premium in addition to the general 11.5% premium in order for you to maintain equal accrual.
• You will need to discuss this with your new employer and if they agree to pay the additional pension premium they will need to confirm this when they submit the Application for Division A membership on your behalf.
• Subsequently, we recommend that you monitor the employer's first premium payments on My Pages to ensure that they are correct. The additional pension premium changes annually and you can see the current premium percentage on the employer page.

With specified private pension, you use part of the mandatory pension premium to save in a private pension fund. On the other hand, payments to the mutual insurance fund of Division A will decrease.

By doing so, you can get more flexibility in payouts at retirement, increase inherited property in pension savings, and possibly make it easier for you to buy your first property. On the other hand, rights to pensions paid until the end of life and disability and spouse's pensions decrease. The younger the fund members are, the more rights they acquire in mutual insurance.

Therefore, it may be wise for younger fund members to wait to save in specified private property until the preferred rights have accumulated in mutual insurance.

The specified private pension thus has both its advantages and disadvantages, and everyone has to assess whether the specified private pension is suitable for them. The specified private pension page covers these issues in detail.

What is the application process?

1. Your employer fills out a membership application for Division A on your behalf.
2. LSR staff processes the application and calls for additional information from the employer if necessary.
3. Your membership in Division A of the LSR is confirmed with the employer and they pay your premiums to the division.

What is the application process?

1. You fill out a private pension agreement where you choose, amongst other things, what percentage of salary you want to pay into the fund. The most common is to choose 2 or 4%. You also choose an investment plan.
2. LSR staff processes the application and contacts you, if necessary.
3. The agreement is sent to your employer, who will pay your private pension premium, along with their matching contribution into a private pension fund in your name.
4. To be on the safe side, also inform your payroll officer that you wish to pay into a private pension fund at LSR. We also recommend that you monitor whether payments start arriving in the fund on My Pages and contact the payroll officer if payments are not received.

What is the application process?

1. You fill out an application for specified private pension, where you choose whether you save 1.5%, 2.5% or 3.5% of your salary in specified private pension.
2. LSR staff processes the application and contacts you, if necessary.
3. After processing is complete, LSR will transfer part of your pension premium to the specified private pension. There is no need to notify the employer of this change, it happens automatically at LSR.
4. It is good to monitor that payments are received to the specified private pension on My Pages. Note that it can take up to two months from the time of application until the first payment is received.