Several Dutch pension funds have published October updates for their schemes, with all recording decreases to their policy ratios.

Pensioenfonds Hoogovens’ policy coverage ratio, the average of the coverage ratio over the past 12 months, fell from 126.4 per cent to 125.1 per cent in October.

The policy coverage ratio was therefore 18.5 percentage points lower than the coverage ratio for future sustainable indexation (TBI). The TBI is the coverage ratio from which allowances not granted in the past may be made up.

In addition to this, Pensioenfonds Hoogovens’ current coverage ratio fell from 122.6 per cent to 120.5 per cent in October.

At the beginning of 2024, the current coverage ratio was 121.2 per cent, meaning the current coverage ratio fell below the level it started with this year.

The value of invested capital increased from €9,828m to €10,261m so far in 2024, which increased the current coverage ratio by 7.7 percentage points during the month.

However, the discount rate had a negative effect of 5 percentage points on the development of the current coverage ratio this year. The granted pension increase had a negative effect of 4.1 percentage points on the current coverage ratio.

Meanwhile, Pensioenfonds UWV reported that its average policy funding ratio fell in October from 120.1 per cent to 118.7 per cent.

However, its current funding ratio increased to 120 per cent in October 2024, up from 119.8 per cent in September.

Given this, Pensioenfonds UWV suggested that as the funding ratio was currently higher than 110 per cent the fund was “perfectly healthy” and there may be an increase in pensions for their savers.

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