Q: What is normal retirement?
Normal retirement is a pension concept involving the number of years of service by the employee or the employee’s age that would entitle them to a pension benefit. It’s to be distinguished from a disability pension, which usually begins for in line of duty disability from the moment of employment, or for ordinary disability, after a number of years of employment.
Q: What is early retirement?
Early retirement is short of normal retirement by a number of years. We generally recommend that employees not take an early retirement because it is actuarily reduced from the full benefit that would be payable for a normal retirement.
Q: What is the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP)?
A deferred retirement option program, called a “drop”, is a recent development in pension law, whereby the employee can retire after a certain number of years or at a certain age. Their pension is frozen and invested to be drawn when they actually do retire, because they can continue to work, usually, up to something like five years. There is one particular problem with drop programs, however, in that very little consideration has been made as to what happens if the employee has to leave short of their drop period due to illness or injury. It would probably be very important for an employee to contact a professional at that time to look for other options.
