Enhancements to FireSuper from 1 March 2024

The Trustee board, Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fire and Emergency) and the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union have some good news to share with you about recent enhancements to the New Zealand Fire Service Superannuation Scheme.

We are pleased to announce that amendments designed to modernise the trust deed governing the scheme (Trust Deed) have now been finalised and a new Trust Deed will come into effect on
1 March 2024.

Here is a summary of the key changes:

1.     Name change: The scheme will now officially be known as "FireSuper".

2.     New early access facilities: We have introduced four new early access facilities to provide members with improved flexibility in certain circumstances.

Three of these are KiwiSaver-consistent early access facilities, each of which is subject to terms and conditions like those applying to a KiwiSaver scheme:

• First home purchase: Members can now apply to withdraw their FireSuper funds to buy their first home.
• Significant financial hardship: Members can now access their FireSuper funds in cases of significant financial hardship.
• Life-shortening congenital conditions: Members can now apply to access their FireSuper funds if they suffer from a life-shortening condition which is congenital (meaning one they were born with).

Specified financial hardship: Members can also now apply to access up to half their Regular Section balance from FireSuper if they suffer property destruction or damage, or incur costs, due to a natural disaster or pandemic illness resulting in a state of emergency.

3.     Other amendments:

• Updated top-up entitlements: The calculation of the top-up benefit that may be payable for an in-service member who dies or suffers Loss of Medical or Physical Fitness has been updated to take into account FireSuper's new early access facilities.
• Payment of death benefit: The rules for paying death benefits have changed – essentially (though the old rules will continue applying to deferred members until 1 September 2024) when a member has remained in FireSuper after leaving service:

o   the "nominated beneficiaries" facility that applies to an employee member will continue applying; and

o   if the member dies then their FireSuper funds (other than any Complying Fund Section balance, which must still be paid to their estate) will be paid at the Trustee board’s discretion to either their nominated beneficiaries (in such proportions as the Trustee board decides) or to their estate.

• Simpler names for member balances: these will now be referred to as "accounts" instead of "accumulations".
• New contribution rate options in Complying Fund Section: Members who choose to contribute to the Complying Fund Section can now choose a Complying Fund Section contribution rate of 5% or 6%, in addition to the existing options of 3% or 4%.
• Updated Fire and Emergency contributions split: Where members are contributing to the Complying Fund Section, only the before-tax portion of Fire and Emergency’s contributions equal to 3% of superable salary will now go into that section, and the remainder of its contributions will go into the Regular Section (where they can be more flexibly accessed). Fire and Emergency’s overall contribution rate is unchanged.

You can find more information about the new rules in FireSuper's latest Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and Other Material Information document (OMI).

Please note that the new Trust Deed fully preserves:

• all existing members’ potential top-up entitlements in cases of death in service, Loss of Medical Fitness and Loss of Physical Fitness (other than adjusting them as necessary to take account of the new early access facilities); and
• the contribution rate entitlements of members who were already Fire and Emergency employees on 17 April 1987 (when FireSuper was established).

An Additional Information for Pre-1 March 2024 Members document (Additional Information Document) sets out some additional details about those preserved entitlements.

The PDS, the OMI and the Additional Information Document are all available both:

• on the FireSuper website at www.firesuper.org.nz/documents; and
• on the Disclose website at www.disclose-register.companiesoffice.govt.nz.

If you have any questions about the changes to FireSuper, please email the FireSuper Secretary at nzfire.super@mercer.com or call the Helpline on 0800 MY SUPER (0800 69 78737). We're here to help!