You can begin to receive an early retirement pension on or after your early retirement birthday, provided you terminate employment with your OMERS employer. Depending on how many years you’ve been in the OMERS Plan, you’ll be entitled to either an unreduced pension or a reduced pension.
Once your employer has informed OMERS of your planned retirement, you will be notified when you can begin the retirement process in myOMERS.
Watch this video for a step-by-step guide on completing the process in myOMERS
OMERS will not be notified until your final payroll has been processed, which often results in receiving the information a few weeks after your actual retirement date.
If you are owed a pension payment for a prior month based on when we received information from your employer, you may receive your first payment sooner based on our weekly payment schedule.
To ensure you’re prepared, have your banking information ready for entry in myOMERS.
See our Getting Ready to Retire guide for helpful information on what you need to do to start receiving your OMERS pension
For an estimate based on the information we have on file, use the myOMERS Retirement Income Estimator. Your milestone dates are provided for you (your early and normal retirement dates) or you can pick other dates you have in mind. You can also take your estimate a step further and add in income from personal savings, CPP and OAS, and then get a snapshot of your estimated net (after tax) income before and after retirement.
Did you know? The Retirement Income Estimator produces exactly the same estimate that you would get if you requested one by contacting OMERS – and it takes just a few minutes!
OMERS offers pre-retirement seminars suitable for members within 15 years of retirement. Your employer has to request a pre-retirement seminar; it covers normal and early retirement pensions, disability benefits, survivor benefits and inflation protection.
Most financial advisers suggest going into retirement debt-free: paying off loans, mortgages, and especially credit-card debt, so interest payments aren't draining your retirement income.
It's easy to get caught up in work, and it doesn't slow down to help you find the right work/life balance. You need to step back and assess your life.
Develop interests and activities outside of work, things that you will be interested in doing in retirement.
Retirement is inevitable for most of us. Preparing and planning for retirement before it happens will make it go a lot smoother.
Retirement can be a turning point for insurance benefits, particularly medical insurance.
To help with insurance planning, we send an insurance information package to members at retirement. The package includes notices from the organizations listed below; while we cannot endorse or guarantee any of these products or services, we have agreed to pass along their information.
Be sure to identify yourself as an OMERS member – these organizations have special offers for OMERS members.
Organization | Contact information |
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Health, dental, travel, life insurance, and RecoverEase insurance plans for retirees | Victor Insurance Managers Inc. 600 - 55 Standish Court Mississauga, Ontario, L5R 4B2 Tel: 1-800-363-7861 Email: mroo.ca@victorinsurance.com |
As an OMERS member, you have reached your normal retirement age (NRA) or early retirement birthday to be entitled to receive a retirement pension. Your normal retirement date is the last day of the month in which you reach your normal retirement age.
Or, you may retire as early as age 50 (for normal retirement age 60) or age 55 (for normal retirement 65).
An early retirement pension can be either unreduced (no penalty) or reduced (with a penalty).
You will receive an unreduced pension if you are of retirement age and you:
have reached your 85 Factor (for normal retirement age 60) or your 90 Factor (for normal retirement age 65); or
have 30 years or more of qualifying service.
You may retire with a reduced pension if you do not have enough qualifying service or do not reach an 85 or 90 Factor.