What if ...

It is important to keep your details up to date so that we can give you information about your company pension and account balance. If you move house, for instance, you can easily enter your new address online in your pension account. You can do this through Vantage Towers SuccessFactor for as long as you are employed at Vantage Towers.

The basic monthly contribution, which is paid by Vantage Towers and you jointly, is calculated based on your eligible income. This is your gross base salary plus any potential supplements exceeding your workplace agreement. If your working hours change, your salary will change, too – the monthly contribution amount will change in line with this. Apart from that, your pension plan will continue as normal even if you work part time – you can deposit additional voluntary contributions and change your investment strategy at any time.

Vantage Towers contributions and your own basic contribution are based on your gross salary. If you are not receiving a salary, contributions will not be paid into your pension account either. When you take maternity leave, you receive maternity pay from your health insurer – with Vantage Towers merely making up the difference between it and your normal salary. You do not receive a salary when you take parental leave. This means that contributions are not made to your pension during maternity or parental leave. However, the balance of your pension account will continue to grow in line with the investment funds’ performance.

If you get divorced, there are rules concerning your pension entitlements under the company pension plan. There is legislation that calls for a ‘pension entitlements settlement’. This legislation says that your former spouse is generally entitled to half of the pension entitlements you have accrued during your marriage. Courts can order Vantage Towers to provide information about an employee’s benefit entitlements and to send them the associated calculations; Vantage Towers will be obliged to do so in such cases.

If you leave Vantage Towers before you retire, you will not lose anything – you will keep the full amount of the pension balance you have saved so far. As a result, Vantage Towers gives you far more entitlements than called for by law.

You can change your investment strategy one last time before leaving us. You will no longer be able to make contributions afterwards. However, the balance of your pension account will continue to grow in line with the investment strategy you have selected most recently – based on fund performance.

When it is time to receive your pension (due to age, disability or death), you can make an informal request for the Vantage Towers Pension Team to pay out your pension; simply email.

If you fall ill, you will continue to receive your regular salary from Vantage Towers for up to six weeks. After this period, your health insurer will give you sick pay, and Vantage Towers may support you with a net supplement. This means that you will cease to receive a gross salary from this point on – and as such, contributions will no longer be made to your pension plan either. The balance on your pension account, however, will continue to develop based on the investment funds’ performance. Contributions will be paid in as normal once you return to work.

The risk of disability is real: A quarter of working people in Germany will, at some point, lose some or all of their capacity to do their job. State support for those affected is not nearly enough to secure their standard of living. But as an employee of Vantage Towers, you do not need to worry. In 2021, we introduced a new and very attractive risk benefit that we can offer to all eligible employees for the first time. If you are unable to work due to disability, you will be entitled to a monthly disability pension of up to 25 % of your salary, until you reach normal retirement age. Unlike previously, you do not need to end your working relationship with Vantage Towers to qualify.

All eligible Vantage Towers employees are automatically covered for occupational disability for work, so you do not need to take any further action. The pension is paid by Vantage Towers and the benefit is financed by Zurich Versicherung. Please note that the disability pension is taxed in accordance with the regulations when it is paid out, and that contributions to health and nursing care insurance are also due. If you leave Vantage Towers, cover will continue for the current policy year and then expire. However, you can privately conclude a follow-up agreement with the insurance company on favourable terms. In this case, you will be exempt from the medical examination and the waiting period.

If you die before you reach normal retirement age, your surviving dependants will be entitled to the assets saved from your pension plan. They will also receive an additional risk benefit amounting to approximately one year’s basic gross annual salary. Surviving dependants are defined by law as the following, in the following order: spouse or registered civil partner, cohabiting partner, and children entitled to child benefit. Payments cannot be made to other individuals. If you wish your cohabiting partner to benefit, you need to fill in the relevant form first – you can find it online in the portal.

Better safe than sorry: to start with, your pension entitlements are protected by a ‘contractual trust arrangement’ (CTA). This means that Vantage Towers transfers all contributions to Vantage Towers Pension Trust e.V. every month, and this organisation will take care of your pension benefits if Vantage Towers goes bankrupt. Moreover, your pension entitlements also have the best possible legal protection through the Pension Guarantee Association (_Pensions-Sicherungs-Verein_, PSVaG). If Vantage Towers goes bankrupt, PSVaG will usually take charge of your pension benefits as soon as they are vested in accordance with the law. You can find more information about the requirements for vesting online. Your own contributions will immediately be secure up to an amount of four per cent of the income threshold and any voluntary amounts in excess of that will be vested if you have worked at Vantage Towers for at least two years.

In the event that your employer is acquired in full by another company, nothing will happen to your pension. The full amount of all contributions will be retained.