What is an ‘investment switch’?

The scheme offers you four investment funds – Growth, Balanced, Stable, and Cash (more information about each investment fund is available in the Member Booklet). You have the flexibility to choose a single fund or a combination of funds for your current account balance or future contributions. You can make changes to your investment fund(s) allocation at any time.

You can also direct your own and your employer's future contributions into a different fund or funds as often as you like for no charge.

Are there any switch fees?

There is no charge for the first investment switch made within the financial year (1 July – 30 June). However, a fee applies for any subsequent changes during the same financial year. At the time of writing this article, the fee for subsequent changes is currently $40.

While there is no limit on the number of switches you can make, retirement saving is a long-term undertaking and often it is best to stick to your savings strategy and not try to ‘time the market’ (making short-term decisions in response to changing market conditions).

Making an investment switch

Before making any changes to your investment strategy, you should speak with a financial adviser and read the Member Booklet for the Scheme (available from the Documents & forms section).

You can submit an investment switch request:

• Online when you log into www.teachersretire.org.nz
• Phone: call Helpline on 0508 4 TEACH (0508 4 83224).

Investment switch process

After submitting an investment switch request you will receive a confirmation (receipt) that your request has been received.

TRSS is not an unitised scheme like most KiwiSaver Schemes and has monthly crediting rates (interest rates) and weekly interim crediting rates. As a result investment switch requests are processed weekly based on the following Monday's (or the next working day if the Monday is a public holiday) crediting rates. These crediting rates are not known until the Wednesday, but the actual change is made effective from the Monday.  In the period prior to the investment switch being processed your funds will remain invested in its existing asset allocation.

It is important to understand that the scheme provides market-linked investments. This means the value of the underlying investments will rise and fall according to market conditions, which will affect the value of the investments shown on www.teachersretire.org.nz and on your annual member statement.

Cumulative and monthly returns for the current scheme year are available from the home page of www.teachersretire.org.nz.

Please note: A scheduled backup of your Account information occurs each night between approximately 1:30am New Zealand Standard Time (NZST) and 2:30am (NZST). We recommend that you minimise making changes to your Account information during this period, as access may be interrupted and your transaction may not be able to be submitted for a short period of time.

Find out your what investment fund(s) you are currently in

Your current investment strategy is shown online.

When viewing percentages in any investment choice, please note that this site can only display whole numbers. As a result, if your account is invested across multiple investment options, the pre-populated percentages above may not total 100%.