Defined Benefit Plan

If the amount of the pension payments depends on what the last insured salary was, this is known as a defined benefit plan.

Example: CHF 100’000 salary, minus a coordination deduction of CHF 25’095, results in an insured salary of CHF 74’905. Therefore 60 % of the insured salary results in an annual pension of CHF 44’943.

The defined benefit plan can be very unfair. Imagine having to accept a reduction in salary before retirement. In that case, the pension payments would be calculated based on the new lower salary. But you have been paying contributions based on the previous higher salary for years.

The defined benefit plan is a phased-out model. Only 6.8 % of the insured are still insured under the defined benefit plan (2018), as can be seen from the federal pension fund statistics. In 2005 the figure was as high as 20 %.