The Kaiser Permanente Salaried Pension: When It Can Start, and How It Is Paid.

For non-union salaried employees of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, three plans do most of the work. The pension is the Kaiser Permanente Salaried Retirement Plan, which is Supplement 1-A of the larger Kaiser Permanente Retirement Plan. Beside it sit the Kaiser Permanente Supplemental Savings and Retirement Plan, which Kaiser funds, and the Kaiser Permanente Tax Sheltered Annuity Plan, a 403(b) plan most people call the TSA.

Supplement 1-A covers, among other groups, non-union salaried employees of the participating Kaiser companies, which include Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and non-union employees of the Southern California Region of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, with some exclusions such as students, trainees and certain research roles. The Retirement Plan has other supplements, and this page describes only Supplement 1-A. Your pension statement names the supplement that applies to you.

If you have been looking for a Kaiser 401(k) match, the filings point somewhere else. The 2024 audited financial statements for the Kaiser Permanente 401(k) Retirement Plan do not list non-union employees among those eligible. The TSA's statements do, and Kaiser's Southern California benefits summary names the TSA as the savings plan for Health Plan and Hospitals employees. For this group, the TSA is the plan to look at.

Normal retirement age is 65. You join the plan after one year of employment with at least 1,000 hours, and you are vested, meaning the benefit is yours whether or not you stay, after five years of service, where a year of service is a calendar year with at least 1,000 hours.

You qualify for early retirement at 55 with 15 years of service, or once your age and your years of service add up to at least 75. An early benefit is reduced for each year it starts before 65: by 3% a year between 60 and 65, and by 5% a year between 55 and 60. Worked through, a benefit starting at 60 is 85% of the age-65 amount, and one starting at 55 is 60%.

Leaving before 55 does not always mean waiting until 65. If you leave with at least 15 years of service, you can start a reduced benefit as early as 55, or when your age and service reach 75, reduced the same way. And from January 1, 2026, a participant who is not represented by a union and leaves before meeting the early retirement requirements may elect an actuarially equivalent benefit before 65.

Working past 65 is covered too. You can start your pension while still employed after 65, and a benefit that starts later than 65 is the greater of what you have earned and your age-65 benefit adjusted for the later start.

If you are unmarried, the standard form is a life annuity. If you are married, it is a 50% joint and survivor annuity, actuarially reduced so that payments can continue to your spouse. The other forms are a life annuity; joint and survivor annuities continuing 50%, 66-2/3% or 75% to a survivor; a life annuity with 5, 10, 15 or 20 years of payments guaranteed; a level income option that pays more before Social Security begins and less after; a lump sum; a 100% joint and survivor annuity with a 15-year guarantee and a pop-up; and installments over a fixed number of months, up to 360.

The actuary's summary says the 50% joint and survivor annuity and the 100% joint and survivor annuity with the pop-up are worth more, actuarially, than the life annuity, and that every other form, the lump sum included, is worth the same as the life annuity.

The lump sum is not a number set in advance. It is calculated with the mortality table and interest rate prescribed under Internal Revenue Code section 417(e) for the month two months before your benefit starts. The rates in that month move it, and so does the start date you choose, so the same pension can produce a different lump sum depending on when it begins.

If you are married, choosing a form other than the joint and survivor annuity requires your spouse's written consent.

The TSA takes contributions of 1% to 75% of eligible pay, with catch-up contributions from age 50. Kaiser's Southern California summary says you are enrolled automatically at 2% unless you opt out, with the rate rising by 1% a year to 6%, and that you can contribute pre-tax, Roth or both. Your own contributions are always fully vested.

Kaiser makes TSA contributions for certain employee groups, as the plan document defines them. We have not found the formula in any public document for Southern California, so this page does not state one. What the filings do state is the vesting: employer contributions vest 20% for each year of service and are fully vested after five years.

The Supplemental Savings and Retirement Plan is a money purchase plan. Under the terms described in its 2022, 2023 and 2024 filings, Kaiser contributes 5% of compensation after two years of employment, you are fully vested in it at all times, and you can add after-tax contributions of 1% to 10%.

The 2024 audited financial statements add that, after the end of that year, the plan was amended to end participation by certain non-union, non-executive employees, effective February 1, 2025 and July 1, 2025. The filing does not say which employees. Whether you are still accruing in this plan is a question your latest statement answers, and one worth settling before you plan around it.

Both accounts offer participant-directed brokerage accounts. The filings name Vanguard as trustee and custodian, with a Schwab brokerage service offered through it. A brokerage window is a choice to make deliberately, not a feature to use because it is there.

One interaction runs the opposite way from what people expect. Final average compensation counts the pay you defer into the TSA, so saving more there does not shrink the pay your pension is based on.

The pension stays yours once you are vested. Depending on your age and service when you leave, it is payable at 65, from 55 with 15 years of service, or earlier as an actuarially equivalent benefit under the change that took effect on January 1, 2026.

The TSA and the Supplemental Savings and Retirement Plan can pay out when you retire, leave, become disabled or die, and a balance over $5,000 can stay in the plan after you go. The TSA can also pay out from age 59 1/2, or for hardship as the plan defines it. Employer TSA money you have not yet vested in does not leave with you.

The plan's 42nd amendment sets a time limit on claims for benefits. A claim must be filed with the plan administrator by the later of two years after your termination of employment, or two years after the plan gives you written notice of your vested status or of the components of your benefit payment. If something about your pension looks wrong when you leave, that clock is the reason not to let it sit.

Retiree medical is its own plan. Its 2024 audited financial statements describe medical benefits for eligible retirees of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, including premium subsidies and health reimbursement arrangements, and they reserve Kaiser's right to change or end those benefits. Kaiser's Southern California summary says eligibility depends on your age and years of service when you retire, without giving the rule. Because the rule turns on the date you retire, confirm it in HRconnect before you choose one.

The TSA employer contribution formula and the 401(k) match. Neither is in any public document we found for Southern California.

Which employees the 2025 change to the Supplemental Savings and Retirement Plan affects, and what, if anything, replaced it.

The Southern California rule for retiree medical eligibility.

Any pension supplement other than Supplement 1-A, and the plans of Permanente Medical Group physicians and union-represented employees.

Anything newer than the documents. The actuary's summary reflects the plan through its 43rd amendment, signed in December 2023, and the changes listed in the 2024 filing, including the one effective January 1, 2026. It describes itself as a brief summary and refers readers to the governing plan documents, which control wherever the two differ. Your pension statement, HRconnect and your Total Rewards Statement are where to confirm what applies to you.