DBS Projected retirement income gone down

[fluffythecat1]

I don’t know much about pensions, however at 52 I’m looking at how much I will have upon retirement. In 2024 I had a retirement illustration provided which was £14,500 a year, however this year it has decreased to £13,200. I understand that this may be due to instability in the market, interest rates, tariffs etc affecting DBS pensions etc, however I’m concerned at the decrease and I’m wondering if it will go up again by the time I retire. The pension has moved providers to PIC who bought out the previous provider and apparently £10million was returned to the previous provider. PIC are supposedly a safe pair of hands to secure DBS pensions.

If it is a defined benefit pension scheme it isn't impacted by market movements. Contact them to ask why it has changed.

It sounds like either an error somewhere or not comparing like with like.
Defined benefit pensions could only potentially go down if there was deflation. They aren’t dependent on markets - you get a guaranteed amount for life, which increases each year both before and after it starts being paid, in line with whatever inflation measure(s) are specified in the scheme rules.
Are you sure you aren’t either:

comparing projected pensions (which could reduce if eg you went part time as the expectation would be you’d build up less going forward; or

choosing an earlier retirement age - if you take your pension earlier you get less per year to reflect taking it for longer

If neither of these I would ask the scheme administrator for an explanation. It could be an error in either your previous or current statement

One difference is that I also have a DC pension which needs to be added in- I’m awaiting that having chased it up, so perhaps that accounts for the difference. The DB pension scheme closed a while back and I left the company in 2013.

DBS pensions can definitely go down if your best tears salaries in last 10 years are less. You need to find out why and research the actual scheme you are in to find out the rules.