IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON CHANGES TO OUR MYSUPER INVESTMENT PRODUCT

4 August 2021

At Active Super, we believe in being active in how and where we invest and from 1 October 2021, we’ll be making some changes to our MySuper investment product, the Age-Based Investment Strategy that aims to maximise your super. 

When you invest with us, you can either choose your own investment mix through our Choice Investment products or you can leave it up to us. Leaving it up to us means your money goes into our MySuper product, the Age-Based Investment Strategy, which automatically adjusts the investment risk strategy according to your age. It’s the age brackets in our MySuper product that are changing.

Why are the age brackets changing?

The age that you transition between investment stages can make a significant difference to your super. Australians are now living and working for longer. By delaying the age that we move you to lower risk investments, we aim to help maximise your super balance and also make it last longer in retirement.  

We’re also changing the name of our MySuper product to Active Super Lifestage Product and renaming the different investment stages. This is to not only align to our new brand, Active Super, but also differentiate the MySuper product from our Choice products – making it easier for you to understand how your money is invested.

Risk, age and your super balance

With any investment strategy the higher the risk, the higher the potential return. Therefore, when you’re younger, it makes sense to invest your super in riskier, higher growth assets, because you have time to wait out any temporary downturns in the market. As you get closer to retirement, however, most people want to reduce their investment risk. 

Our MySuper Age-Based Investment Strategy operates on this principle, automatically de-risking your super as you get older, as shown in the table.

Current MySuper Product:  Aged-Based Investment Strategy

New MySuper Product: Active Super Lifestage Product

About the new stages

From 1 October, we’ll be reducing the number of investment stages from four to three and renaming them to match the stage of your super journey. The new lifestage names and relevant age brackets are as follows:

Accelerator (up to Age 49): This is the stage of life when members may want to take more risk to maximise the potential growth in your super balance.

Accumulator (Age 50 - 54):  At this age, members may be starting to think about limiting the downside of any significant market corrections, while still benefitting from the market rising. 

Appreciator (Age 55+): Member’s may now be moving into the last stage of their full-time working life and may want to ensure the super balance they’ve accumulated continues to grow, but with less exposure to significant falls in the market that could lead to having to delay retirement or having to adjust their lifestyle based on a lower balance when they retire.

What difference could this make to your super?

Working with Mercer, a global leader in reshaping retirement and investment outcomes, we tested the new Lifestage strategies by modelling different age, salary and balance scenarios to see how they could affect your final super balance at retirement. 

Our modelling scenarios included real-life market cycles and events, like the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008. Even with such significant market downturns, the new strategy we’ve selected has the potential to significantly increase your final super balance compared to the current MySuper product.

Member current age Current MySuperAge- Based Investment Strategy anticipated balance at retirement (Aged 67) New Active Super Lifestage product anticipated balance at retirement (Aged 67) Potential increase to final super balance at retirement (Aged 67)
20 $724,792 $ 839,817 $115,025
40 $313,039 $361,332 $48,293
50 $258,603 $292,823 $34,219
60 $175,046 $187,776 $12,729

Are fees and costs affected?

Active Super is committed to delivering value for money for members and we recently announced a reduction in our administration fees for the second year running and the removal of switching fees altogether.*

The new Active Super Lifestage product will mean members stay in higher growth products for longer and these products tend to have slightly higher fees. However, these higher fees have been factored into our predicted outcomes for your super (see table above showing the potential to increase your super balance).  And it’s our assessment that members will be better off in retirement in the new Active Super Lifestage product compared to the current MySuper product. 

Current name and age bracket New name and age bracket at 1 October
MySuper product name Age-Based Investment Strategy Active Super Lifestage Product
Stage/Strategy Names MySuper High Growth
Age up to 44
Active Super Lifestage – Accelerator
Age up to 49
MySuper Balanced Growth
Age 45 - 49
Active Super Lifestage – Accumulator
Age 50 – 54
MySuper Balanced
Age 50 - 54
Active Super Lifestage – Appreciator
Age 55+
MySuper Conservative
Age 55+
N/A – Now only available as a Choice product

Not happy with the changes?

The changes are designed to give members a better chance of retiring with more super. If, after reading and considering these documents fully, you decide they’re not for you, you can switch to any of the Active Super Choice Investment options.

Switching is easy and it’s free. Simply log into Member Online or call Member Care and we can talk you through the process. We recommend, however, that you talk to a financial adviser before making any changes to your super investments.

What to do next

You do not need to do anything. The changes will happen automatically on 1 October 2021. 

OTHER CHANGES THAT MAY AFFECT YOU

Choice Investment options names

If you actively choose your own investment mix with Active Super – as opposed to our default MySuper product which takes care of your investment mix for you – then you need to  know about some changes we’re making to our Choice Investment product.

From 1 October 2021 we’ll be renaming two of the investment options within our Choice Investment products. Balanced Growth will become Balanced, and Balanced will become Conservative Balanced. See the table below.

It might seem like a simple change – and it is – but it brings us more into line with other super funds making it easier for you to compare our performance. So you can be more active with your super.

The changes affect the name only. There are no changes to the way these investment options are managed. 

Names of our Choice Investment options

Current names Names from 1 October Growth vs Defensive % asset split benchmark (unchanged)
High Growth High Growth 90/10
Balanced Growth Balanced 70/30
Balanced Conservative Balanced 52/48
Conservative Conservative 32/68
Managed Cash Managed Cash 0/100

HAVE A QUESTION?

If you have any questions about these changes and how they affect you, please contact our friendly team.