Making contributions

Accumulation members

For Employers using SAFF, the address details changes will automatically flow through to Vision Super via their file.

DB Members and ad-hoc address updates for Accumulation members

Employers can update an address for a member anytime via the Employer Online portal. Go to Member Maintenance > Search for and select the member > Click Edit and the follow the prompts.

Accumulation members

For Employers using SAFF, the Termination details will automatically flow through to Vision Super via their file.

DB Members and ad-hoc Terminations for Accumulation members

Employers can process a Termination for a member anytime either by submitting Form 19 which you can find on the website under resources or via the Employer Online portal. Just following the path Member Maintenance > Search for and select the member > Click Terminate and the follow the prompts.

Please send an email to [email protected] detailing your request or call the Employer Hotline on 1300 304 947

We do not currently charge a fee to use our Clearinghouse solution, but per the Clearinghouse agreement we do reserve the right to change this at any time.

You can reset your password by visiting the Employer login page and clicking the Forgotten your password link.

If you have any issues with resetting your password, please call the Employer Hotline on 1300 304 947.

If you call us on 1300 304 947 we can arrange for booklets and PDS to be delivered as well as our induction video that’s available for new employees.

No, there are no costs involved.

If you change your employer in most instances you can request, they pay your super into your Vision Super account. Simply fill in the Choice of Fund form and hand it in to your payroll officer.

If you have to go with your employers default super fund you may be able to keep your insurance benefits with us because your insurance cover with Vision Super doesn’t necessarily cease when you change employers (provided that you satisfy the terms and conditions contained within the relevant insurance policy).

We’d encourage you to talk to us before you engage a lawyer. Vision Super pays more than 85% of insurance claims, so the likelihood is your claim will be paid if you work with us directly, and you’ll end up with more of your money. Many lawyers advertise that they’ll work for you on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis, but if your claim is approved, they may take a large chunk of your payout – it can be around 30% of an entitlement. Our insurance team is here to help you through every step of the claims process, including all the paperwork, without having to get a lawyer involved and potentially losing money you need to pay for medical treatment or maintain your lifestyle.

Call us on 1300 300 820 and we will answer any questions and send you the required information.

Yes, you can cancel your cover at any time. Any cancellation or reduction of cover will take effect from the date we receive your request or the date you specified in your request (as long as it’s after the date we receive it). If you are replacing your existing cover with an alternative cover, before cancelling we recommend that you have your replacement cover in place first. To talk to us about cancelling a policy, please call us on 1300 300 820.

If you are thinking about changing your insurance please consider seeking financial advice before making any changes to make sure it is right for you and your needs and circumstances.

You may be able to get cover if you have a pre-existing medical condition. You will just need to apply to remove the pre-existing condition exclusion when you join by filling in a Personal Statement. Our Insurer will review your application taking into consideration any pre-existing conditions and general health and advise if your request has been accepted.

If your application is unsuccessful,  there will be a two-year Pre-Existing Condition (PEC) exclusion on Death and TPD cover and Income Protection cover. This means that no benefit will be paid if you are totally and permanently disabled, terminally ill or die as a direct or indirect result of a pre-existing medical condition in the first two years of your insurance cover.

You can have multiple income protection policies, and there are legitimate reasons why people choose more than one product.

However, some income protection policies prevent claimants from receiving more than a certain percentage of their gross salary while off work. What that means is you could have three income protection policies that all offer payments equalling 75 per cent of your gross salary, but you wouldn’t be able to claim the full amount from all three. You would typically be limited to a combined maximum of 75 per cent across the policies.

Yes. You can have more than one death, or death and TPD policy in addition to the one you hold in your Vision Super account. However, depending on your circumstances rather than managing multiple policies it might be as simple as increasing the cover you have with us without the need for further medical assessments. It is generally more cost-effective to have one policy so that you are not paying premiums on more than one policy.

Increases in cover in Vision Super may require a medical assessment. If you are considering cancelling cover you hold outside of Vision Super and replacing it with cover in Vision Super, we recommend you call us first on 1300 300 820. Please consider seeking financial advice before making any changes to make sure your insurance is right for you and your needs and circumstances.

We’re required to have Target Market Determinations under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Design and Distribution Obligations and Product Intervention Powers) Act 2019.

This is to make sure we’re keeping members at the centre of our approach to the design and distribution of our financial products.

This legislation requires financial services product issuers to design products that are appropriate for the consumers in the target market and consistent with their objectives, financial situation, and needs.

A Target Market Determination is a document which describes who a product is appropriate for (target market), and any conditions around how the product can be distributed to customers.

It also describes the events or circumstances where we may need to review the Target Market Determination for a financial product.

Cash investment options are generally a combination of money in the bank and money invested for a short time in money market securities, such as bank term deposits and bank bills.

If you are risk averse or working to a short timeframe, then a Cash option that typically provides stable, low risk returns may be suitable for you. This type of investment option will protect the nominal value of your superannuation, but the returns will often be low compared with other investment options.

The risk associated with cash investments is generally minimal, although the returns are also minimal. Cash can be a safe haven in times of economic uncertainty, and occasionally you may wish to preserve capital by allocating some of your super to cash.

We recommend that you obtain financial advice before making any decisions about investing in our Cash option.

To book an appointment with a Vision Super financial planner, either call us or complete our online appointment form:

Go to the form to book an appointment online >

Call our Contact Centre on 1300 300 820 (Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5pm).

Advice fees may apply, which will be discussed with you before any work is undertaken.

We don’t currently charge switching fees, so there is no impact on your super account balance from switching between investment options. However, if you have the right investment risk profile and your investments are matched up to your risk profile, you shouldn’t be needing to make switches regularly.

From time to time you should review your risk profile, maybe when you are first starting out in the workforce, are in the middle of your working life, a few years away from retirement and/or going into retirement. Otherwise the investments you have in superannuation should be a ‘set and forget’ strategy where you ride the ups and downs of the investments over a longer period.

You can switch investment options for some, or all, of your account balance, future contributions, or both. You can also nominate which investment option you would like your withdrawals to be made from.

You can switch between investment options by logging into our website, or the Vision Super app, or by sending us a completed Investment choice form. You can also call us, on 1300 300 820 (Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5pm).

Investment switches are processed based on the unit prices of the relevant investment options declared on the next business day after we receive your switching request, unless there is a delay with processing due to abnormal market conditions or system failure.

Frequent switching between investment options and trying to second-guess the market can be risky, particularly for high-risk investment options designed to be held in the long-term (6-12 years). You should switch only after a thorough review of your long-term investment strategy.

We recommend that you obtain financial advice before making any decisions about switching between investment options.

To book an appointment with a Vision Super financial planner, either call us or complete our online appointment form:

Go to the form to book an appointment online >

Call our Contact Centre on 1300 300 820 (Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5pm).

Advice fees may apply, which will be discussed with you before any work is undertaken. For full details on advice costs, please refer to the Vision Super Fees and Costs guide.

Growth assets are higher risk but offer a higher potential return compared to defensive assets. They aim to grow the capital that’s invested and provide some income. Defensive assets are lower-risk investments which aim to protect the capital invested while providing an income.

The classification of assets into either growth or defensive has the advantage of simplicity, but it also has limitations when used as an indicator of risk. The classification does not capture diversification, which can have a larger impact on reducing the overall portfolio risk when assets are combined.

Another issue is that different people may have different classifications for the same asset type because there are no regulations governing this area and no clear guidance by the regulators on a standardised growth/defensive split. Classifications of growth or defensive assets may also change over time depending on market conditions and pricing.

We believe that there needs to be greater consistency and transparency in how super funds arrive at their growth/defensive mixes. But in the absence of regulations, there are going to be differences in practice and opinion. To avoid any potential misunderstandings, Vision Super does not publish the growth/defensive split of our investment options.

Compound interest is the interest that is earned on money that was previously earned as interest.

For example, if you have an investment of $100 that pays interest of 5% every year, then in the first year you will be paid interest of $5 over the year (5% of $100).

What happens in the next year? That’s where compounding comes in. You will not only earn interest on your initial $100 deposit, you will also earn interest on the $5 interest that you earned in the first year.

That means you will earn $5.25 in the second next year because your account balance is now $105, even though you didn’t make any deposits. This may not seem like much of an increase, but the effect of compounding becomes more dramatic over long periods of time. After 30 years, your initial $100 investment would be worth $432.19, and that year you would be paid $21.61 in interest.

This cycle leads to interest and account balances going up at an increasing rate, which is sometimes known as exponential growth.

Our primary objective is to maximise our members’ investment returns so that our members have more for their retirement. One of the means by which we try to achieve this objective is to instruct our underlying investment managers to incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations into their investment decision-making processes. We believe that this approach will help support long-term investment performance and enhance risk management. The way we factor ESG issues into our investment decisions is set out in our ESG Policy.

We are a signatory and member of a range of organisations that promote responsible investing in the superannuation industry, including the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI). We are also a signatory to the Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis and we are a support investor to the Climate Action 100+ initiative. This is an investor-led initiative aiming to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take appropriate action in relation to climate change.

These items reflect short-term liabilities such as overdrafts and margins that need to be posted to collateral accounts for strategies using exchange traded derivatives following certain market moves.

Our Australian equities managers invest in portfolios of predominantly Australian companies. This may well include companies that are property or infrastructure businesses, which are classified as Listed Property or Listed Infrastructure in the portfolio holdings reporting. Similarly, the cash holdings within these portfolios will be reported as Cash.

The rules the government has put in place for super funds are designed to provide greater transparency about underlying investments and place increased focus on trustees ensuring their only consideration, when investing, is to act in the best financial interests of our members.  We also take the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of companies into account because the research shows that companies that perform well on these factors have better long-term performance. More detail on the way we factor ESG considerations into our decision-making, including our overarching investment beliefs and divestments framework, is set out in our ESG Policy.

However, if we excluded every company that someone ‘might not like’ from our portfolio, we would have an increasingly narrow field of possible investments. People have a wide range of views on companies they believe we shouldn’t invest in – this list would cover everything from dairy companies, to fashion brands, medical research, gaming and banks.

Restricting our investments like this would almost certainly reduce adequate diversification and impact on portfolio performance over the longer term – which runs counter to our core obligation to act in the best financial interests of our members.

Vision Super excludes companies that are identified by our ESG data provider as having any involvement in the production of tobacco. Vaping companies are also excluded. Our approach is broadly consistent with the Tobacco-Free Finance Pledge under the auspices of Tobacco Free Portfolios and the UNEP Finance Initiative to which we are a signatory.

Our decision to divest from tobacco producers also reflects the risk that the returns from these companies will be adversely impacted by litigation and/or regulation. The full list of companies that we consider to be prohibited investments is available on our website here.

Controversial weapons are ones that can have a severe impact on civilians, and are generally banned under international treaties. Land mines, cluster bombs and nuclear weapons are deemed to be particularly controversial because of their indiscriminate impacts on civilians and the disproportionate harm they cause – in the case of land mines, for many years after a conflict has ended. Despite being widely considered to be controversial and often prohibited by international treaties, these weapons are still produced in some parts of the world.

Based on information provided by our ESG data provider, Vision Super excludes companies that generate:

> More than 5% of revenue from critical components for nuclear weapons.

> Any revenue from critical components of anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions or depleted uranium weaponry.

The full list of companies that we consider to be prohibited investments is available on our website here.

The Fund has some exposure to mining companies.  Mining remains integral to the global economy, including the necessary transition to a renewable economy through the manufacture of renewable energy infrastructure such as wind turbines and solar panels.

Our exposure to fossil fuels is implemented through carbon intensity restrictions for our listed equity portfolios. The listed equity asset classes are managed with an approach that aims to provide meaningfully less carbon-intensive exposure versus the respective benchmarks (based on ISS data on scope 1 and 2 carbon intensity levels). Our listed equity carbon intensity restrictions are fund-wide and apply to listed equities across our options.

For further information please refer to our carbon budget page

Centrelink needs to know some details so they can calculate payments such as the age pension. We provide this information directly to Centrelink electronically, on your behalf, every February and August. You can request a Centrelink schedule from Vision Super at any time.

No. Once you have opened an account you cannot make any additional contributions. However, you can close your existing account and open a new account, combining any additional contributions with your existing balance.

Important to know: Government changes to deeming rules could affect you if you choose to close your current account and open a new one. To find out whether your entitlements – including the age pension – could be reduced, we recommend seeking financial advice first.

Your regular pension income payments will be paid directly to a personal or joint bank account nominated by you in your application form. You can choose to receive payments twice monthly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, four-monthly, six-monthly or annually.

You have access to make lump sum withdrawals (over and above your pension (income)) payments from a retirement pension however, with a transition to retirement pension lump sum withdrawals are limited and you can only commute your pension by transferring your account balance into an accumulation product.

You need to have met preservation age and have a minimum investment amount of $10,000. Other eligibility conditions apply. Refer to the Vision Super Income Streams PDS for further details.

Eligibility for the government age pension depends on your age, residency status, and the income and assets tests, plus the value of your assets. If you are eligible, for all or part of the government age pension, then combining it with your Vision Super pension can work well. You can use the age pension to meet basic living costs and spending money can come from your Vision Super pension.

When you open your Pension account, you’ll have the option of nominating your spouse as a ‘reversionary beneficiary’. This means that if you die, the account will change ownership to your spouse and regular payments from the account will be paid to the spouse. Your spouse will then have the option of withdrawing the account balance if he/she meets preservation age and other rules. Alternatively, you can nominate one or more binding or preferred non-binding beneficiary (the beneficiary must be your dependant and/or legal personal representative when you die).

Stapling commences on 1 November 2021. From 1 November 2021, employers will need to take new steps to determine the correct super fund for new employees.

Where the ATO identifies multiple funds that may be stapled to an employee, tiebreaker rules will apply:

1. The most recent fund identified by the ATO will be the employee’s stapled fund for the selected period (from the start of the previous financial year until the day when the ATO applies tiebreaker requirements).
2. If 1. doesn’t apply, it will be the fund that received the most recent contribution over the selected period.
3. If 1. and 2. don’t apply, it will be the fund that held the largest balance at the end of the previous financial year.
4. If none of the above applies, the ATO will consider factors like when an employee joined a fund and other relevant information to identify the stapled fund.
5. Employees will also be able to see details of their stapled super fund in their MyGov account.

If you are doing this for a single member and not using the ATO’s bulk upload service, the ATO expects results to be available within minutes.

If the ATO provides a stapled super fund response to an employer, the ATO will contact the employee and advise them of the request.

Employees will receive an SMS if they have a valid mobile number in the ATO records and/or a letter (through myGov or paper) advising who has requested the information and more details on the options available to the employee.

Yes, it applies to all employers.

Existing employees aren’t affected by these changes. You must continue to make their compulsory superannuation guarantee (SG) payments into the same super fund account you do today.

Yes, you still need a default fund. If a new employee starts on or after 1 November 2021, and neither nominates a fund nor has an existing fund, you will pay their contributions to your default fund.