If you are a member of CARE you may be covered for benefits if you become too ill to work. There are two levels of cover:
- Incapacity; and
- serious incapacity.
The benefit you receive will depend on the severity of your illness at the time and your ability to continue working.
The Company decides whether you are entitled to incapacity and serious incapacity pension. It will need satisfactory medical evidence of your ill-health before any pension is paid. Once in payment, your pension will be increased in the same way as normal retirement income. You will have an option to exchange part of your pension for tax-free cash sum.
Incapacity
If you are unable to continue working in your current job due to ill health, but you are still able to do some kind of work, you may be entitled to take your pension early.
To calculate your benefits for ill-health retirement, we work out your pension at the date of your retirement and then reduce it to take account of early payment. This is the same process we follow for other early retirement cases, but ill-health retirement can allow you to access your benefits earlier than the minimum pension age (currently 55).
Serious incapacity
If you become so ill that you will be unable to do any kind of work again, you may be entitled to an enhanced ill-health pension.
To calculate your benefits in this situation, we work out your pension at the date of your retirement, but there is no reduction because of early payment.
Serious commutation
If your life expectancy is particularly short and you have less than 12 months to live, under special circumstances the Trustee may let you exchange all of your pension for a cash sum. This does not affect any spouse's or dependant's pension that would be payable after your death.
Please note
The decision on whether to grant ill-health benefits is taken by the Company after considering medical evidence. The Trustee must also be satisfied that you are and will continue to be incapable of carrying out your occupation because of physical or mental impairment. Once an ill-health pension has been granted it is subject to periodic review and may be reduced or suspended at any time if you are unable or unwilling to supply the required evidence of ongoing incapacity/serious incapacity (as appropriate) at any point prior to NRD.
