A Power of Attorney (“POA”) is a legal document that gives someone else the right to make decisions on your behalf. There are two types of POAs: one for property and the other for personal care. For your NHRIPP pension, only the POA for property is relevant because your pension is considered property.

Some POAs are effective immediately while others are not. In either case, please provide InBenefits with a notarized copy of your POA for property. This way, your attorney will have the authority to act on your behalf if the need arises.

Although your pension is part of your family assets, dividing your pension between yourself and your former spouse is not mandatory. Instead, you and your former spouse can decide to use other assets to equalize your family assets should your relationship end.

If your pension is divided, your former spouse is entitled to a maximum of 50% of the value of the pension which accrued during the time you were married or common-law partners. It’s very important to contact InBenefits about the steps involved in providing your former spouse with a share of the pension.

As soon as your spousal status changes, you must advise InBenefits. We want to make sure that we pay any survivor benefit to the right person in the case you die.

If you start a new spousal relationship after you have started to receive your pension, you new spouse will not be eligible for a survivor pension.

At retirement, you may choose a pension payment option that provides a minimum of 60, 120, or 180 monthly payments. For example, let’s assume you chose a lifetime pension with a minimum of 60 monthly payments and died after receiving 12 pension payments. In such circumstances, your beneficiary or estate would receive the current value of the unpaid 48 pension payments as a lump sum payments.

You may change your beneficiary at any time before receiving the minimum number of payments through the My InSite member portal or by completing a new Designation of Beneficiary form. You may also name a new beneficiary if your designated beneficiary dies before you by using the online MyInSite member portal or completing a new Designation of Beneficiary form and submitting it to InBenefits.

If your beneficiary(ies) dies before you and you do not name a new beneficiary(ies), any death benefit from the NHRIPP will be paid to your estate where it may be subject to probate fees, estate taxes and creditors.

During retirement, if you change your address or personal information – please don’t forget to let us know because we use this information to contact you. You can update all your information on the My InSite member portal.

The Income Tax Act does not permit you to receive a pension and accrue pension benefits in the same plan at the same time.

Once you have started your NHRIPP pension, if you decide to return to work for a contributing employer your NHRIPP pension will be suspended unless certain conditions are met.

When you start your NHRIPP pension again, it will be re-calculated to include the additional contributions to the Plan.

For more details, please refer to the Working After Retirement section in the Member’s Handbook.