Your pension will be paid to you for as long as you live.

When you retire, you will be asked to make a pension choice and that choice will determine how your pension will be paid after you die. If you have a pension partner when you retire, you will be asked to make a pension choice that ensures your pension partner is paid a pension for their lifetime if you die. Your pension partner can waive this right at the time the pension choice is made.

If you don't have a pension partner, or your pension partner has waived her or his right, you can select a pension that will pay you for your life, but includes a feature that ensures the pension is paid to your beneficiary(ies) for a set period.

While your pension is being paid, you will receive cost-of-living adjustments each year.

Further information:
Member Handbook - Retirement Benefits - Pension Options?
What are your Pension Options?
Pension Partner Information Form (LA5)
Designation of Beneficiary(ies) Form (LA2)
Multiple Beneficiaries Form (LA2L)
I need a pension estimate

The maximum pensionable service is 35 years. If you reach this milestone, your contributions stop. If you continue to work, your highest average salary used to calculate the pension when you retire will include the post-35 year salary even though contributions stopped. This usually has a positive effect on a member's highest average salary, subject to the salary cap.

Banking Information and Name

• Update your information by phone (as long as your pension payment is by direct deposit) at 1-877-422-4748.
• By mail to:
  LAPP c/o Alberta Pensions Services Corporation
  5103 Windermere Blvd SW
  Edmonton, AB T6W 0S9
• By fax at 780-415-8792
• Banking information changes must be sent in writing
• To change your name on our file, we need a copy of your name change document (such as a marriage certificate)

Address
We will take an address change over the phone as long as your pension payment is by direct deposit. Banking information changes must be sent in writing. To change your name on our file, we need a copy of your name change document (such as a marriage certificate). If you wish to change your beneficiary, send in a written request, contact us to send you a form or you can click on the link below to download the form.

Beneficiary

• Fill out the Designation of Beneficiary Form and mail it to:
  LAPP c/o Alberta Pensions Services Corporation (APS)
  5103 Windermere Blvd SW, Edmonton, AB T6W 0S9
• Contact us to request a form
• Mail a written request to:
  LAPP c/o Alberta Pensions Services Corporation
  5103 Windermere Blvd SW
  Edmonton, AB T6W 0S9

Yes, you can work while receiving your pension. Recent plan amendments allow you to continue receiving your pension even if you are re-employed by your previous employer. You cannot re-join the plan to earn additional pensionable service, due to federal income tax rules, but you may have additional RRSP room based on your employment income.

For more information, see the Working as a Retiree Information Sheet.

Your pension is guaranteed to increase at a rate of 60 per cent of the increase in Alberta's Consumer Price Index. The details of each year's increase are mailed to you each year in January.

For more information, go to the COLA page.

Your pension will continue to be paid no matter where you live. Your pension will be paid in Canadian dollars. A cheque can be mailed to you or we can direct deposit it into a bank account in Canada for you. You will receive a NR4 from us instead of a T4A for tax purposes. The tax rate for pensions paid to non-residents is 25 per cent. Some countries have tax treaties which will reduce the out of country tax from 25 per cent to between 0 per cent to 25 per cent.

Yes, to increase the amount of tax deducted, please contact us. Include your full name, social insurance number, pension number and the amount of extra tax you would like to have withheld.

(a) APS finalizes the pension benefits once it receives all of the information from the member and employer. Generally, this process takes up to one month.

A pension is paid at the end of the first month you are entitled to a payment.

(b) The deposit date is always the second last banking day before the end of the month, except for December. In December, the deposit date is before December 25.

For more information, see Pension Payment Dates.

In order to split pension payments between a retiree and ex-spouse due to marital breakdown, we require a Matrimonial Property Order. Please contact us to discuss this in further detail or refer to APS' website.

There are two sources - contributions and investment returns. About 20 per cent of the Plan's income is from contributions and about 80 per cent comes from returns on investments. One of the main purposes of the LAPP Board of Trustees is to ensure the Plan is properly funded. To do this, they have an Actuary review the plans at least once every three years.

Visit the Financial/Investments section for more financial information about the Plan.

Now that you are retired, you do not contribute to the Plan. Contributions are paid by employee members and their employers.

Pension fund contributions are not part of the Government's general revenues, so they go to a separate fund that is directed by the LAPP Board of Trustees. This fund is managed by Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), as directed by the LAPP Board. The investments are balanced in asset classes and are well-diversified for security and long-term growth. The current policy has 35.5 per cent of the fund invested in fixed income investments (such as bonds and mortgages), 15 per cent in Canadian equities, 24.5 per cent in foreign equities, 10 per cent in real estate and 17 per cent in alternative investments (such as private equity, hedge funds, timberland, etc.).

For more information, view the Board's Long Term Funding Policy.

Pension plans like LAPP are long-term investors. The contribution dollars of members joining the Plan today will be invested and reinvested for many years into the future. The investments compound and grow over time before being used to pay out to members as pensions during their retirement years.

In order to secure our pension promise, LAPP's Board of Trustees sets funding and investment policies which are regularly monitored. The Board, with the advice of an actuary, sets a funding policy to ensure that employer and employee contribution levels are sufficient. The contributions, together with expected investment returns, will pay all future pension liabilities.

We have designed LAPP's investment policy to generate the required rate of return after inflation, which in turn will grow to a large pool of assets that will provide the pension benefits to our members over the long term.

For more information, see LAPP's investment policy.

Given the long investment timeframe for pension plans, we know there will be periods of investment market weakness, resulting in investment under-performance. However, history shows us that over the long run, invested money grows in value.

To avoid major losses in any one area, LAPP's investment policy requires prudent diversification. As a result, LAPP invests in a broad set of assets including money market instruments, bonds, mortgages, real return bonds, real estate and stocks from companies based in Canada, the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world.

We set limits on how much money can be invested in the different asset classes and in any one company or security, so that a loss in a single investment will not have a material financial impact on the Plan. LAPP also assures appropriate diversification is achieved between geographic locations, industrial sectors, investment managers and styles.

Moreover, LAPP is a defined benefit plan where pension benefits are based on a formula and not actual investment performance. Therefore, if the Plan suffered investment losses, retirees are protected by the financial resources of the Plan's sponsors and contributions from active members.

Each year, the Alberta Auditor General does a complete audit and presents an audited statement to the Alberta Government and to the Board.