Confused about my maternity letter

[ShadowStorm]

I gave HR my formal written notification of my pregnancy, complete with MAT1B form & details of when I plan to start maternity leave, earlier this week.

Got home today, and found a letter responding to this from HR on the doormat.

It all starts off fairly normally, saying when they expect me back if I take the full 52 weeks, detailing my maternity pay (the legal minimum) - although for some reason, they've tippexed out the old SMP rate and written the correct one in. Not sure why they didn't correct that electronically? And then, they move onto company benefits. Which is where it starts to go all screwy.

Holiday entitlement is as expected from my reading of the company maternity policy.

But then, it's got a section about Life Assurance for non-pension scheme members - which would be fine, except for the fact that I am actually a member of the company pension scheme.

In this section, there's a paragraph talking about AVC contributions, and about how I've got wide flexibility with regard to whether or not to continue making AVC payments. But they don't say what AVC stands for! And neither does the maternity policy. So I have no idea what this AVC stuff is all about, except that it's under the life assurance heading.

They also don't mention anything about my pension in the letter at all. According to the company maternity policy, my contractual benefits (except pay) apply throughout my maternity leave. This should include pensions. I'm a bit concerned about my pension not being mentioned.

Because it's Friday now, I can't get in touch with HR until Monday at the earliest. I'm going to ask them why they haven't mentioned my pension and what happens to it when I'm on maternity leave - but in the meantime, can anyone help me understand what this AVC business is about? And what it's got to do with life assurance?

oh dear, sounds like the kind of letter I am inclined to mail on a Friday....

Avc stands for additional voluntary contributions.

So how do additional voluntary contributions work with life assurance?

If your HR is anything like our HR (and I work for a FTSE 100 company so they really should be on the ball) they can be relied on to get things wrong on a regular basis. No big deal, you just have to watch them like a hawk and make them fix it when they stuff up.

I'd just have a meeting with HR next week and go through the letter with them & all of your questions. Then make them reissue the letter (and double check with the pension fund and insurance company directly). It can all be fixed, you still have lots of time I assume before you go on mat leave?

As trinity says AVCs are additional voluntary contributions, so extra money you pay into the scheme every month.
Most pension schemes have a life assurance benefit so that if you die before you reach retirement your estate gets some money back - the amount can be a return of money invested, linked to the value of your plan etc.
It sounds like the letter isn't well produced anyway since there's tippex on it so I wouldn't get too worried.
Is it a defined contribution pension scheme? Presumably you have a member/policy/plan number and get annual statements showing how much you've paid in and what it might be worth when you retire?
How does it work in terms of how much you pay and your employer pays - do they match your contribution up to a certain level?

Yes, pension scheme is defined contribution. Changed from final salary about a year after I joined the company.

I pay in x% of my salary, and employer matches that. I receive annual statements about the pension.

So, just to check - AVC relates to pensions, rather than life assurance. It looks like HR have cocked up the maternity letter by missing out everything about pensions except the info about AVC, which is only relevant to people who are a member of the pension scheme anyway.

I'm currently on mat leave. If I remember correctly what happens to me is I pay 1% contribution to pension and my employer 3% (these are made up numbers), then whilst I'm on mat leave I still pay 1% but only of my current take home pay, employer still pays 3% of full salary.

Make sense?

So, HR have sent me an e-mail effectively saying "Whoops, we missed the bit about pensions out of the template letter, thanks for pointing it out! Here is the extra bit that should have been included (followed by stuff about pensions)"

Do you think I should e-mail back and ask them to send out a corrected letter? Or is an e-mail adequate? Just e-mail doesn't feel very formal when it comes to official stuff like how company benefits work when I'm on maternity leave.

It's only giving you information, so there's no reason it needs to be on paper rather than an email. Ask if you want to but it doesn't add anything by getting them to redo the letter.