Pensioners
Pensioners – Frequently Asked Questions
Information and forms for members who are receiving a monthly pension.
Important note: If mail is returned from the last known address of the pension recipient, the CSSB will make reasonable attempts to contact the recipient and update the information. Upon the discretion of the CSSB, further pension payments may cease until contact is made with the pension recipient.
General Information
Premiums for retirement insurance will not be deducted while your pension is being paid on an estimate basis, but this delay in deductions does not affect your eligibility for insurance coverage.
Monthly premiums will be deducted from your pension once your pension has been finalized and your employer has confirmed your eligibility for insurance coverage. It takes approximately three to six months after retirement for the pension to be finalized. At that time there will be a one-time retroactive deduction for the period from the day your employee coverage ended, up to and including the current month, plus a deduction for pre-payment of the following month.
We can start to pay your pension before your employer has notified us about your retirement and provided information on your final service and earnings. However, until that information has been received and verified, your pension will be paid on an estimated basis.
Pensions being paid on estimate are based on the last service and earnings information that has been verified by the CSSB. In most cases, this will be the amounts reported at the prior year end, but it could go back even further than that. As a result, this pension could be quite a bit lower (as much as 20%) than the pension estimates you have received, which would have included projected service and earnings amounts.
When final service and earnings information has been reported by your employer and verified by the CSSB, your final pension will be calculated. A one-time adjustment will be made to your pension to make up for any difference between the pension amounts you’ve received and what you should have received.
At that time, CSSB will provide you with written confirmation of your pension arrangements, including a statement of your finalized pension amount and explanations of any deductions.
It is important to notify CSSB of a member’s death as soon as possible. We will need the following information:
- name of the deceased,
- date of birth
- date of death
- Name and contact information for the pensioner’s spouse or common-law partner or the executor of the estate.
Pension Information
A retroactive salary adjustment may increase your pension if it increases your Best Five Year Average Pensionable Salary.
Salary for pension purposes is defined in The Civil Service Superannuation Act and includes your regular remuneration (with any eligible vacation cash-out) and excludes anything else that does not form part of your regular remuneration. Regular remuneration is typically determined by the employer and may be defined in a collective agreement or employment contract. If a retroactive increase is considered by the employer as pensionable salary, the employer will report that salary to the CSSB.
We would do a recalculation to include retroactive salary paid to a former employee who has resigned, been dismissed, or died, if the former employee or his or her spouse, common-law partner or eligible survivor is entitled to a pension.
Yes you can. When signing in, try signing in using your work email address as your username because, unless you changed or removed it from our system, it is still your active username with the CSSB. If you are having trouble signing in using your work email address, please contact us at askus@cssb.mb.ca and we can assist you.
You can register additional email addresses on your account and delete your work email address, under Edit My Profile, then Email Addresses. You may log into your Online Services account using any of the confirmed email addresses as your username.
It’s important to check which is designated as your Primary email address. This is the address that CSSB will use to send you email notifications, such as letting you know that you have a document ready for pickup in your Document Centre Inbox. If your work email address is still indicated as Primary, you won’t receive relevant emails from CSSB.
- Our office has not yet received your completed Notice of Retirement form, or
- Our office has not received your banking information, and/or
- Your forms were not received in enough time before we were processing the pensioner payroll.
There may be several reasons:
- The Bridging Benefit may no longer be payable. If you retired between the ages of 55 and 60 and did not meet the ‘Rule of 80’, the early retirement reduction applied to your pension. For pension benefits earned on or after January 1, 1992, your pension may have been enhanced by a Temporary Allowance or “Bridging Benefit” until age 65. At age 65, the Temporary Allowance stops.
- Integration adjustments may have changed. At the time of retirement, if you elected to integrate, you would have received an increased pension from the Board on early retirement. Your pension would then be reduced at age 60 for CPP integration and age 65 for OAS integration.
- Your pension is no longer being paid on an estimated basis. When our office received all of the documentation necessary to determine the final pension amount, you would have received a lump-sum payment for the difference between the pension paid on an estimated basis to the final pension amount. The following month after this adjustment is made, your pension payment will no longer include this adjustment.
- Income Tax deductions may have changed. Pension payments are taxable income and income tax is deducted from your monthly pension based on the TD1 forms you provided with your retirement forms and the tax tables currently in effect. Changes to the amount of your monthly pension or to the tax tables could increase or decrease the amount of tax deducted.
Premiums for retirement insurance will not be deducted while your pension is being paid on an estimate basis, but this delay in deductions does not affect your eligibility for insurance coverage.
Monthly premiums will be deducted from your pension once your pension has been finalized and your employer has confirmed your eligibility for insurance coverage. It takes approximately three to six months after retirement for the pension to be finalized. At that time there will be a one-time retroactive deduction for the period from the day your employee coverage ended, up to and including the current month, plus a deduction for pre-payment of the following month.
Group life insurance premiums are pre-paid for the month. Depending on when your employer stopped your premiums as an active member, our office may need to take additional premiums to ensure continuous coverage.
An insured active or retired member who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness may apply for prepayment of a portion of the life insurance benefit. Approval is based on criteria set out by The Insurance Company. If you would like further information, please contact our office.
Provide a cheque with “VOID” written on the front with the new banking information OR submit a deposit information form from your financial institution. This document must be signed and dated yourself or your Power of Attorney.
Please indicate the following information on the documents:
- Your name,
- PIN (Personal Identification Number), and
- Effective date of the change.
If you want to change your bank account to a financial institution outside of Canada, we have made arrangements with Western Union that will allow us to send your pension benefit directly to a bank account in your country of residence.
To set up or change these arrangements, complete both sides of the CSSB Foreign Direct Deposit Enrolment Form.
This information can be sent to our office by mail, fax or through the Document Centre if you are registered for Online Services.
For more information go to: https://cssb.mb.ca/pensioners/direct-deposit-changes/
While it may be convenient to be able to change banking information online, the Board is concerned about the security of this option. To protect pensioners, the Board requires changes in banking information to be signed by the member or the member’s legally authorized representative. Retiring members can provide deposit information online at retirement, however that information is summarized on a form that the member signs before submitting it to the Board. Subsequent changes must be made in writing and signed by the member or the member’s legally authorized representative.
Retiring members rarely have others acting on their behalf at retirement, and are very likely to notice if their pension payment is not deposited to their financial institution. Many members in their later years have others acting on their behalf, and risks of honest accident or oversight, as well as potential elder abuse or fraud, may be greater.
Yes, you need to notify our office if you have a change in mailing address. If mail is returned and our office is unable to contact you, this will cause an interruption in your pension payments.
If you are registered for Online Services, you can update your address by going to “Edit My Profile” and click on “Address”.
You can either contact our office by phone or in writing with the change of address. Please indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN (Personal Identification Number),
- New mailing address, and
- Effective date of the change.
Yes. Notify our office in writing and indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN,
- Temporary mailing address, and
- Effective from and to date of the change.
Notify our office in writing if you are moving out of country. Please indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN,
- New mailing address,
- Effective date of the change, and
- Declare in writing if you are to be taxed as a non-resident and the effective date. Without a written declaration and date, our office will withhold the minimum tax required by Canada Revenue Agency.
We send members who live outside of Canada an annual Declaration for Continued Receipt of Pension Benefits form. If the form is not returned, upon the discretion of the CSSB, further pension payments may cease until contact is made with the pension recipient.
To serve our members better, we have made arrangements with Western Union that will allow us to send your pension benefit directly to a bank account in your country of residence.
To set up or change these arrangements, complete both sides of the CSSB Foreign Direct Deposit Enrolment Form.
For more information go to: https://cssb.mb.ca/pensioners/direct-deposit-changes/
Notify our office in writing if you are moving back to Canada. Please indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN,
- New mailing address,
- Effective date of the change, and
- Declare in writing if you are to be taxed as a resident of Canada and the effective date.
Your pension may be on estimate for the following reasons:
- Our office has not yet received proof of age for you and/or for your spouse or common-law partner, if applicable,
- Our office has not yet received or verified the final service and earnings information from your employer,
- Our office has not yet received or verified the final group insurance information from your employer, or
- Your employer did not deduct the correct amount of contributions and our office is waiting for the payment of these contributions in arrears.
Please note that, depending on the time of year that you retire and the number retirements being processed, your account may remain on estimate for four to five months.
You can request that our office deduct an additional amount of tax from your pension payment. You can make this request in writing or by completing and sending our office a new TD1.
When making the request in writing, please provide the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN, and
- Amount of additional tax to deducted.
Our office cannot adjust tax below the minimum tax withholding required by Canada Revenue Agency.
Pensioner Documents
Provide a cheque with “VOID” written on the front with the new banking information OR submit the deposit information form from your financial institution. This document must be signed and dated by the member or Power of Attorney.
Please indicate the following information on the documents:
- Your name,
- PIN (Personal Identification Number), and
- Effective date of the change.
If you want to change your bank account to a financial institution outside of Canada, we have made arrangements with Western Union that will allow us to send your pension benefit directly to a bank account in your country of residence.
To set up or change these arrangements, complete both sides of the CSSB Foreign Direct Deposit Enrolment Form.
This information can be sent to our office by mail, fax or through the Document Centre if you are registered for Online Services.
For more information go to: https://cssb.mb.ca/pensioners/direct-deposit-changes/
Yes, you need to notify our office if you have a change in mailing address. If mail is returned and our office is unable to contact you, this will cause an interruption in your pension payments.
If you are registered for Online Services, you can update your address by going to “Edit My Profile” and click on “Address”.
You can also contact our office by phone or in writing with the change of address. Please indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN (Personal Identification Number) or Social Insurance Number,
- New mailing address, and
- Effective date of the change.
Yes. Notify our office in writing and indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN or Social Insurance Number,
- Temporary mailing address, and
- Effective from and to date of the change.
Notify our office in writing if you are moving out of country. Please indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN,
- New mailing address,
- Effective date of the change, and
- Declare in writing if you are to be taxed as a non-resident and the effective date (without a written declaration and date, our office will withhold the minimum tax required by Canada Revenue Agency).
We send members who live outside of Canada an annual Declaration for Continued Receipt of Pension Benefits form. If the form is not returned, upon the discretion of the CSSB, further pension payments may cease until contact is made with the pension recipient.
To serve our members better, we have made arrangements with Western Union that will allow us to send your pension benefit directly to a bank account in your country of residence.
To set up or change these arrangements, complete both sides of the CSSB Foreign Direct Deposit Enrolment Form.
For more information go to: https://cssb.mb.ca/pensioners/direct-deposit-changes/
Notify our office in writing if you are moving to Canada. Please indicate the following information:
- Your name,
- PIN or Social Insurance Number,
- New mailing address,
- Effective date of the change, and
Declare in writing if you are to be taxed as a resident of Canada and the effective date.