Getting a purchase estimate with our do-it-yourself “ACE” tool
Deciding whether or not to purchase this service is entirely up to you. We’re making the process as simple as possible so that you can determine if a service purchase is right and affordable for you, before you make the commitment to buy.
With our new Actuarial Cost Estimate (ACE) tool, you can get an estimate of the service purchase cost directly from our website. Once you’ve received your estimate and have decided to pursue the purchase, you’ll complete our Service Purchase Application form and submit it to your previous employer – either from your prior pension plan or the CAAT employer with which you had pre-enrolment service – to get the process started.
What’s an Actuarial Cost Estimate?
The Actuarial Cost Estimate is the estimated cost of purchasing your service, based on your current age and your current salary rate. Using the ACE tool, you can determine the cost of purchasing a certain number of years of service or the number of years of service you can purchase with a certain amount of money.
Once you’ve received your Actuarial Cost Estimate, you are under no obligation to proceed with the purchase.
3 steps to a Service Purchase
Step 1 – Get an Actuarial Cost Estimate
Before getting a formal purchase quote, visit our online Actuarial Cost Estimate tool. Simply input a few pieces of information, such as your current age, current service and salary, and our online tool will provide the cost of purchasing your service. It’s important to note that the cost shown is an estimate only. The actual cost will only be determined once you’ve submitted the appropriate forms to receive a formal quote.
Once you have an idea of the approximate cost of purchasing this service, you can decide whether or not a purchase is right for you. It may be that the funds available to you from your previous employer will not be enough to purchase all of the service available to you. In that case you may decide to purchase less service. It may help to use our online Pension Estimator to see how much the additional service will affect your CAAT Plan pension.
Step 2 - Submit your Service Purchase Application form
After you’ve used the online ACE tool to complete your estimate, you will have access to a Service Purchase Application form. Should you decide to proceed with the purchase, this form will have to be completed and returned to the CAAT Pension Plan. There’s no deadline to submit the form to us.
The “member” portion of the form asks for basic information that will identify you. Complete this section and submit the form to your previous employer. The details that your previous employer will provide, such as your earnings and service history, will be used by the CAAT Plan to prepare a formal quote based on actual data.
There may be some situations in which it may be difficult to retrieve your earnings and service data, (e.g. old employment records no longer exist). In these cases you will have to prove your eligible service using such documents as T4s, employment contracts, annual pension statements and termination option documents from the prior plan.
Step 3 – Make your purchase
Return the completed and signed Service Purchase Application form to the CAAT Pension Plan. We’ll prepare a formal quote which will provide the actual cost of purchasing the service, along with your payment options and deadlines. Once you’ve received the quote, you’ll have 90 days to let the Plan know if you intend to proceed with the purchase. Upon receiving notification that you wish to proceed, we will then extend you an additional 90 days in which to make the payment.
If you don’t make the purchase within 90 days, but choose to make it at a later date, the CAAT Plan will prepare a new quote based on your age and salary at the time.