Personal Solutions

Retirement Annuity

Saving for retirement is relatively easy. Saving enough to maintain your living standard after you stop working is a more difficult challenge, especially with inflation eating away at your precious nest egg. If you want to maintain your current standard of living, afford that special little beach cottage, take trips overseas, study or start an exciting new hobby and not be financially dependent on your children, you need to take charge of your life and start investing in your future as soon as possible.

AMBITON’S retirement annuities solutions are approved tax-efficient tools to save for your golden years.

• A retirement annuity is structured to provide you with a pay-out at any time after the age of 55.
• Legally, up to one-third may be taken in cash. 
• The rest must be reinvested and the proceeds used to pay you a regular pension for life and/or can be used for an income for those you leave behind.
• The investment may only be accessed prior to age 55 in the event of you becoming permanently disabled or via payments relating to divorce, maintenance and emigration.

Take a look at some frightening statistics:

• 94% of South Africans people cannot afford to maintain their current standard of living once they retire
• Even people with 40 years’ service in a typical defined benefit pension fund will see a reduction of at least 20% of pre-retirement income the day they leave their company

Have you thought about cover once you retire? You may have made provision for your retirement, but will you have enough to pay for additional expenses should you become impaired? 

Ambiton also offers cover for before and after retirement, all in one.

Before retirement, your need is protection against the risk that you will not be able to earn an income due to permanent disability or impairment. No one wants to think about the possibility of becoming disabled, but if the worst happens, we have product that will provide you with a lump sum pay out to help you cover your loss of earnings.

After retirement, you no longer face the risk of being unable to work if you become permanently disabled. However, due to aging you may become more vulnerable to impairments, illnesses and injuries; to losing your ability to function independently. Unfortunately dealing with these conditions will cost money and could negatively affect your standard of living. To protect you against this risk Whole of Life disability benefits transform to supplement your post-retirement income by providing you with a monthly income that increases with inflation for the rest of your life, should you suffer impairment after retirement. 

AMBITON can assist you in structuring a solution that will keep up with your retirement plan, with investments that may include Living Annuities, Linked Life Annuities and Preservation Funds.

Life Annuity

Upon retirement you may be confronted with the challenge of how best to preserve your nest egg. Your ability to sustain your desired lifestyle will depend on the growth of your retirement capital as well as the level of income you choose to draw after retirement.

A Life Annuity is a post-retirement product providing the following benefits:

• Receive a guaranteed pension (which is not affected by declining interest rates) until your death
• The guaranteed term you select will impact on the level of pension you receive
• Your income is guaranteed regardless of what happens on the stock market or capital markets
• Should you die during the guaranteed term, the pension is still payable to your dependents until the end of the guaranteed term
• The income may be level or it may increase by a chosen percentage each year

Linked Living Annuity

When you retire, Linked Living Annuities enable you to transfer the benefits from your retirement fund into a flexible, personalized investment portfolio that matches your risk profile and provides you with a retirement income.

You can construct your portfolio from a wide range of funds together with other underlying investment options, such as shares and fixed interest instruments. This allows you to continue your equity exposure after you retire, whilst maintaining control over the underlying assets and your risk profile.

You determine your income level, and the growth of your capital is based on your selection of underlying investments. You can switch between these underlying funds easily and cost effectively, at any point during your investment term, as your circumstances change.

Preservation Funds

When you make a career move or accept a severance package, you'll soon have to decide what to do with the accrued benefits in your pension or provident fund: do you invest this money in your next business venture? Spend it on a car or holiday? Or do you wisely preserve it for its original purpose - your retirement?

The sensible investment option would be to leave your accrued retirement benefits until you retire. AMBITON’s experienced team will assist in making the most worthwhile investment choices.

It is important to note that a transfer to a preservation provident fund must be from a provident fund and a transfer to a preservation pension fund must be from a pension fund. On retirement from a preservation provident fund, you may take the full benefit as a lump sum. With the preservation pension fund, you may take up to one-third of the full benefit as a lump sum. Lump sum benefits are taxed according to a special rates table for retirement and may have a portion that is tax-free. A compulsory life annuity must be purchased with the remaining two-thirds in the case of the preservation pension fund and the income of this life annuity is fully taxable.

Allow one of AMBITON's skilled financial planners to guide you to the options which suit you best.