If someone resigns with less than 15 years of service, what happens to the pension? Is it paid as an annuity once the person reach 65? I heard that you can take the pension as a lump sum because they are encouraging people to leave.
19 replies (most recent on top)
Some people who quit or were terminated were so confused by the term “lump sum” that they imagined that the heavily discounted payment that the company threw their way to write them off the pension plan is the same as the lump sum that’s one of the options in actual retirement.
If you’ve been terminated and you think you’ve received a pension, because you can’t understand how the same term can have multiple meanings, than maybe the company had a point there, for once.
A lot of these responses are as accurate as what you buddy in 6th grade told you about getting to 2nd base with Mary Ellen.
Call HR and/or ExxonMobil Retirement to get all of the details. They'll direct you to everything in writing on the net.
Yes, you get a lump sum amount with less than 15 years. The policy changed June/July 2020 during the Covid crash and the big PIP layoff/purge. It was a big enough carrot for me to say "Hasta la vista" after 13 years of increasingly toxic he'll.
Sleep tight boys and girls.
It’s amazing how many people get it dead wrong, although it’s the easiest thing to find the FAQ on the Intranet.
There’s no change to when you get a pension (annuity or lump sum, benefits deferred or immediate). You need to have 15 ys and be at least 55 (but at 55 you get only 75%). At 60, (not 65, not 59.5 !) you get your full benefits.
One difference is that people over 55 are now prime targets for the PIP and therefore forced early retirement.
The other change is that the company allows or even encourages now former employees to cash out of their pension plan by getting them, upon request, a heavily discounted lump sum that liquidates all of the company’s obligations. This amount should rather be called a one-time cash payment in order not to confuse it to the real lump sum, which is one of the pension options in fully vested retirement.
Those lump sum data points are disappointing.
Wow, EM’s Pension is not industry competitive at all, sad stuff.
Why are there so many conflicting responses here?
Before this recent oil and gas collapse, pension was simple.
You had to have 15 years of credited service.
At age 55 you could claim your pension if you were still employed by the company at that tim.
If you left prior to 55, you had to wait until 65 to draw the pension, and it was seriously discounted.
From 55 to 65 you could draw a progressive pension or receive a lump sum. (Way too many colleagues took lump sum and died early and broke…)
Whatever these new special pension rules are, I don’t like the change, mostly because the changes are of no benefit to me.
I thought we hired only the best & brightest but some of these responses are debunking that - last poster is right - get to 5 yrs (in US at least) and you’ll be pension vested and get something if you decide to bail out.
After 5 years, you are entitled to something.
Might not be called a pension but it’s a lump sum that comes from that pension fund (given to you by the same people that deal with retirees, heck they send you a letter congratulating you for retiring, which you clearly didn’t). You can get the lump sum ~4 months after resigning/initiating the process….if you don’t pull the trigger then, it becomes an annuity later closer to normal retirement again and you don’t have the lump sum option again.
You are not actually eligible for any pension with your described status.
Lump sum or 65 - you are not eligible without 15/55.
Simple.
Another data point….13+ years with company, left in early 2021, pension lump sum was about 140k.
Resigned after 9 years of service. Rolled pension lump sum into traditional IRA (to avoid tax on the sum). 96K total.
@etl+1dUYO5HC Not true. It's case-by-case, like I said below, I got mine with less than 5 years of service. SPD says one has to be a 'retiree' to lump sum, but that's not the case anymore. I am far from retiring.
Do not forget...to be a retiree and have the full pension calculation you have to have 15 years and be 55 years old (at least in US)
Depends on your overall standing with EM and your manager. Left with less than 5 years service but with vested pension. I got the lump sum option after 90 days of quitting so I rolled that over to an IRA. It was huge so I am happy.
Don't forget you get nothing if you leave before 5 years.
You can take a lump sum upon termination because you’re legally allowed to do so, not because the company is being charitable.
Are you saying that if someone leaves before 15 years, the pension amount is calculated differently than the published formula? That doesn’t sound right.
Or the lump sum option would be reduced because they think the leaver would be desperate for the cash?
the benefit amount is 50% compared to what it would be after reaching 15 years. for example, if you work for the company for 14 years and leave, your lump sum will be calculated as if you worked for 7 years
Yes