Common Retirement Terms to Know

Account Statements are documents you get by mail or email that have important information about your retirement account. They include how much money is in your account and any important actions  you may need to take, like naming a beneficiary.

A beneficiary is a person(s) you choose to get the rest of your retirement money should you pass away. Naming a beneficiary will help ensure that your retirement money is paid how you choose. You can change your beneficiary any time on Retirement: My Plan, the website where you manage your account. If you do not choose a beneficiary before you pass away, the Plan dictates one by default is chosen for you. If you need help, call a Secure Retirement representative at 1-800-726-8303.

A contribution is the money that is deposited in your retirement account every month by your employer based on the eligible hours you worked. No money comes out of your paycheck. As long as you keep working as a caregiver, your account balance has the opportunity to grow.

A distribution is a payment made to you from your retirement account. Most SRP participants are eligible for distributions when they turn 65.

Consolidating, or “rolling-over,” is when you combine all of your smaller retirement accounts into one main account. In most cases, rolling over your retirement accounts into one account can help you save money on service fees and manage your investments better.

Compounding interest is when your money grows not just on what you put in initially, called principal, but also on the interest it earns over time, leading to bigger savings in the long run.

Instead of investing all of your money in just one type of investment, diversifying means spreading your money across different types of investments. This helps lower the risk of losing money if one investment doesn’t do well.

These are the work hours you get retirement contribution payments for from your employer. Each month you work as a caregiver, you earn eligible hours and get money in your retirement account for the hours you worked. Training, volunteer and paid time off hours are not eligible for contributions.

An Individual Retirement Account (IRA) is an optional retirement account that is separate from your SRP and allows you to put away money from your paycheck to save for retirement.

A participant is a person who takes part in the retirement plan. Eligible caregivers will be automatically added to the SRP and will become a participant after 6 months of caregiving. Even after you retire or if you begin getting distributions from your account while you are still working, you will be  a Secure Retirement Plan participant until you get paid your full account balance.

Principal is the original amount of money you invest or borrow, before any interest or returns are added.

The Retirement Calculator is an online tool that can help you estimate how much money you will have when you retire. You can use the Retirement Calculator from Milliman when you log into Retirement: My Plan even if you’re no longer caregiving.

The Secure Retirement Plan (SRP) is your employer-funded retirement plan through SEIU 775 Benefits Group. The SRP is the first in the nation of its kind and helps caregivers save money for retirement.

Money in a tax-deferred retirement account is not taxed until you start taking money out of it after you retire.

A target date fund is an investment that is designed so that the fund’s mix of investments will automatically change as you approach retirement age. Target date funds shift to a more conservative investment profile, from a mix with a lot of stock investments in the beginning (during your working years), to a mix weighted more toward bonds when the target retirement date approaches. Historically equity investments outperform bonds in the long-term, but with greater volatility in the short-term than bonds.

The SRP uses target date funds to diversify your investments according to where you are in your career.

When you are vested in your retirement plan, that means that you own the money in the account, even after you stop caregiving. In most cases, you are already vested when you become a Secure Retirement Plan participant.

If your account is showing “unvested,” this is because different rules applied before July 1, 2019, and you did not complete those vesting requirements. More details may be found on the Summary Plan Document, or you can call a Secure Retirement representative at 1-800-726-8303 for more details.