PFRDA said that NPS subscribers will get the choice of multiple annuities from the same ASP will be made available.
According to the PFRDA circular dated May 10, 2023 “The option of multiple Annuities shall be provided for those Subscribers who earmark the annuity corpus more than Rs 10 lakhs wherein Rs 5 lakhs utilized to buy each annuity scheme.”
Under NPS, the immediate annuities are made available to the subscribers by Annuity Service Providers (ASPs) under the enabling provisions of Exit Regulations of PFRDA. AS of now, the subscribers are allowed to buy one annuity scheme from the ASP at the time of exit.
According to the PFRDA circular, it has advised Central Recordkeeping Agencies (CRAs) to build the necessary system-level functionality to facilitate the implementation of this change.
Until this feature is developed, ASPs can handle the requests for multiple annuities received from subscribers and provide the necessary information to CRA through Reverse Information Flow (RIF), PFRDA said.
PFRDA believes that this change will greatly benefit subscribers by providing them with a wider range of annuity options and optimizing their retirement income.
Annuity Service Providers (ASPs) are appointed by PFRDA to maintain the annuity contribution of subscribers through their various schemes. Subscribers will have the option to invest their amount into one annuity scheme upon retirement/resignation.
Presently the following (14) ASPs are empanelled with PFRDA for providing pension:
1. SBI Life Insurance Co. Ltd
2. Life Insurance Corporation of India
3. Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. Ltd
4. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd
5. HDFC Life Insurance Co Ltd.
6. IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co Ltd
7. Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance Co. Ltd
8. Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co Ltd.
9. Canara HSBC Oriental bank of Commerce Life Insurance co Ltd. 10.
Mahindra Life Insurance Co Ltd.
11. Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited
12. Max Life Insurance Company Limited
13. PNB Metlife India Insurance Company Limited
14. Aditya Birla SunLife Insurance Company Limited.
The broad variants of annuity plans offered by the ASPs are as under:
• Pension (Annuity) payable for life at a uniform rate to the annuitant only.
• Pension (Annuity) payable for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years certain and thereafter till the annuitant is alive.
• Pension (Annuity) payable for life increasing at a simple rate of 3% p.a.
• Pension (Annuity) for life with a provision of 50% of the annuity payable to spouse for upon death of the annuitant.
• Pension (Annuity) for life with a provision of 100% of the annuity payable to spouse upon death of the annuitant.
• Pension (Annuity) for life with return of purchase price on death of the annuitant.
• Pension (Annuity) for life with a provision of 100% of the annuity payable to spouse upon death of the annuitant and return of purchase price on death of the spouse.
The pension amount would vary based on the annuity plan and the ASP chosen by the subscriber. For a comparative analysis of the annuity plans and the ASPs
