For long-tenured Nationwide associates
Most of Your Nationwide Pension Can't Be Rolled Over. Your Savings Plan Can.
If you were hired before 2014 and your cash balance account is over $25,000, the plan pays most of it as a monthly annuity. The money you can actually move sits in the Savings Plan. The two decisions are made on different forms, and they only make sense decided together.
Which formula
Which Nationwide Retirement Plan Formula You Are On
Two dates settled it, and neither was a choice: your hire date, and your age on 1 January 2017.
Every associate has an Account Balance, the plan's cash balance structure. Pay credits of 3% to 7% of pay go in each pay period depending on your service, and interest is credited on top at the 30-year Treasury rate, never less than 3.25%.
If you were most recently hired before 1 January 2002, you also have a Final Average Pay benefit. What happened to it depended on your age at the start of 2017.
Age 55 or older on 1 January 2017: Final Average Pay kept accruing, and the plan pays whichever is larger, that benefit or your Account Balance. The formula for service after 1995 is 1.25% of final average compensation, plus 0.50% of the part above Social Security covered compensation, for each year of participation up to 35. Final average compensation is your highest five consecutive years in your last ten. Since 2010 this group's account has earned interest credits but no pay credits.
Under 55 on 1 January 2017: your Final Average Pay benefit was frozen at 31 December 2016, and from 2017 you moved to the Account Balance for everything earned since. That group was 46 to 54 in 2017, which puts most of them between their mid-fifties and mid-sixties now. It is the largest group this page is written for.
Hired or rehired after 31 December 2001: Account Balance only. Legacy Farmland, Wausau, Provident and Harleysville service carries its own frozen pieces, and your statement shows them if you have one.
Pay credits
What the Nationwide Account Balance Adds, by Years of Service
- 3% of pay
- 4% of pay
- 5% of pay
- 6% of pay
- 7% of payWhere most associates reading this sit
Three things people get wrong
Three Costly Misreadings of These Plans
“The match is 6%.”
Figures anywhere from 4% to 6% get repeated. The plan matches 50% of the first 8% you contribute, so the most it adds is 4% of your pay, and only if you contribute the full 8%.
“When I retire I'll roll the whole pension into an IRA.”
Hired before 2014 with a benefit over $25,000, the lump sum is the greater of $25,000 or 25% of your cash balance account. The rest is a monthly annuity. Hired from 2014, the full balance is available as a lump sum only if it is $50,000 or less.
“My old pension formula stopped counting in 2017.”
For associates hired before 2002 who were under 55 on 1 January 2017, the Final Average Pay benefit was frozen at 31 December 2016, not erased. It is still part of what you will be paid, alongside the Account Balance earned since.
The lump sum
What You Can Actually Take as a Lump Sum From the Nationwide Pension
Less than most associates assume, and the cutoff is your hire date, not your balance alone.
Hired before 1 January 2014: if your benefit is worth under $25,000, the lump sum is limited to your account balance. Above $25,000, the most you can take as a lump sum is the greater of $25,000 or 25% of your cash balance account. The rest is paid as a monthly annuity.
Hired on or after 1 January 2014: you can take your whole account balance as a lump sum, but only if it is $50,000 or less.
So for a long-tenured associate, the pension decision is mostly an annuity decision: which form of annuity, whether it continues to a spouse, and when it starts. Those choices are permanent once payments begin. The rollover decision, the one with an IRA and an investment choice at the end of it, is mostly about the Savings Plan.
In December 2024 the plan made a limited-time lump sum offer to eligible participants and moved some of its obligations to Nationwide Life Insurance Company through group annuity contracts. Nothing in the filing says whether an offer like that will be repeated. If one arrives, it is a separate decision with its own deadline, and it deserves the same comparison as the one at retirement.
| Your situation | What you have | How it grows now |
|---|---|---|
| Hired before 2002, and 55 or older on 1 January 2017 | Larger of Final Average Pay or Account Balance | Final Average Pay accrues |
| Hired before 2002, and under 55 on 1 January 2017 | Frozen Final Average Pay, plus Account Balance | Pay credits plus interest |
| Hired or rehired after 31 December 2001 | Account Balance only | Pay credits plus interest |
Two Plans, Two Forms, One Retirement
The pension election and the Savings Plan distribution arrive as separate packets from separate administrators, often weeks apart. Nothing in either one asks what the other decided. That coordination is the part nobody hands you.
The Savings Plan
The Nationwide Savings Plan: the Match, the Vesting and BrokerageLink
The part of your retirement you control, and for many long-tenured associates by now the larger part.
Nationwide matches 50% of the first 8% of pay you contribute, so the match tops out at 4% of your pay. You get the whole 4% only by contributing 8%. The match vests ratably over five years of vesting service, fully vested at 60 months. Your own contributions are always yours. After-tax contributions are allowed but are not matched.
The plan has a self-directed brokerage window through Fidelity, BrokerageLink. At the end of 2024, associates and former associates held $549.6 million in it, up from $454.7 million a year earlier. That is money people have already chosen to manage themselves, inside a plan whose default is a target date fund.
At the end of 2024 the plan held about $8.39 billion across 40,008 people with balances, an average of roughly $210,000. More than 15,000 of them were former associates who left their money in the plan. Leaving it there is a legitimate choice. It should still be a choice.
If you have been using BrokerageLink, the retirement question changes shape. You have already decided to manage part of this money yourself. What changes at retirement is that the money starts paying you, and a portfolio built to grow is not automatically one built to be drawn from.
Timing
Age 55, and the Order the Nationwide Decisions Come In
The dates that matter, and why the order you make the decisions in changes the answer.
Early retirement under the Nationwide Retirement Plan begins at 55 with three years of vesting service. Normal retirement is 65. The plan's 2018 summary plan description gave age 52 for an involuntary termination. Confirm that against your current documents, because it matters most in exactly the year you did not plan for.
That year has been real for some associates. In July 2024 Nationwide announced a reduction of about 5% of its workforce over the following year, mostly in property and casualty and the technology supporting it.
The order matters because each decision changes the next. The annuity form you pick decides what a surviving spouse receives, which changes how much the Savings Plan needs to cover. When the pension starts changes your taxable income in the years before Social Security and Medicare, which changes what a Roth conversion or an IRA withdrawal costs. Deciding the pension first and treating the 401(k) as whatever is left over is the most common way to get the combination wrong.
The honest part
What Nationwide's Public Filings Do Not Tell You
Most of this plan is on the public record. Several of the things that would change your decision are not.
The current year's match and pay credits. Everything on this page comes from the 2024 plan year filings, the most recent filed. The plan can change either.
The early retirement reduction factors for the Final Average Pay benefit, and how the lump sum limits apply to a frozen Final Average Pay piece as opposed to the cash balance account. The audited statements describe the lump sum in terms of the account balance.
Whether after-tax contributions can be converted to Roth inside the plan. The filing confirms after-tax contributions exist and are not matched. It says nothing about conversion.
BrokerageLink's own fees and limits, and the terms of the retiree health reimbursement account Nationwide sponsors for retirees.
All of it is in your summary plan description and your annual pension statement. The plan administrator has to provide the summary plan description on written request.
Questions people ask before booking
Is BAS Financial affiliated with Nationwide?
No. BAS Financial is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company or any Nationwide company, and is not an authorized provider or vendor for Nationwide. Company names are used only to describe the benefit plans discussed. This is independent financial education, not a company benefit.
Is the Nationwide 401(k) match 4%, 5% or 6%?
The Nationwide Savings Plan matches 50% of the first 8% of pay you contribute, which is 4% of pay at most. That is the formula in the plan's audited financial statements for 2023 and 2024. It vests ratably over five years of vesting service.
Can I take my Nationwide pension as a lump sum?
Partly, for most long-tenured associates. Hired before 2014, a benefit over $25,000 can be taken as a lump sum only up to the greater of $25,000 or 25% of your cash balance account, with the rest paid as an annuity. Hired from 2014, the whole account balance is available as a lump sum only if it is $50,000 or less.
Which Nationwide pension formula am I on?
It depends on when you were hired and how old you were on 1 January 2017. Hired before 2002 and 55 or older then, you still accrue Final Average Pay and are paid the larger of that or your Account Balance. Hired before 2002 and under 55 then, your Final Average Pay benefit was frozen at the end of 2016 and you have earned Account Balance credits since. Hired after 2001, you have the Account Balance only.
Does the Nationwide Savings Plan have a brokerage window?
Yes. The plan offers Fidelity BrokerageLink. At the end of 2024 participants held $549.6 million in self-directed brokerage accounts in the plan.
When can I start my Nationwide pension?
Early retirement begins at 55 with three years of vesting service, and normal retirement is 65. The plan's 2018 summary plan description gave age 52 after an involuntary termination. Check the reduction for starting early against your own statement, because the reduction factors are not in the public filings.
What happens to my Savings Plan if I leave Nationwide?
Your own contributions are always yours, and the match is yours to the extent it has vested, fully after 60 months of vesting service. You can take the vested balance as a lump sum or in installments, roll it to an IRA, or leave it in the plan, which more than 15,000 former associates had done at the end of 2024.
A guide to the Nationwide pension and Savings Plan, by email
A plain-English guide for long-tenured associates: how to tell which pension formula you are on, what the lump sum limits leave you deciding, how the Savings Plan match and BrokerageLink fit in, and a checklist for the years before you retire.
Request the complimentary Nationwide pension and Savings Plan guide and it arrives by email.
Check your email. Your Nationwide pension and Savings Plan guide is on its way.
That did not send. Please try again, or emailBStevens@BAS-Financial.comand we will send the Nationwide pension and Savings Plan guide over.
Bring your pension statement and your hire date
Your hire date and your age on 1 January 2017 settle which formula you are on. Your annual pension statement shows your Account Balance and any frozen Final Average Pay piece. Your Savings Plan statement shows what is in BrokerageLink. With those three in front of us, a first conversation can map which decisions are yours, in which order, and what the annuity forms mean for a spouse.
Book a consultationA 30-minute call. No document gathering beforehand, and no obligation afterwards.
What these figures assume
Every number on this page depends on the assumptions below. Change one and the result changes.
Pension formulas and who is on which
- Nationwide Retirement Plan - Final Average Pay, EIN 31-4177100, PN 002, Form 5500 for plan year 2024, received 2025-10-14. Schedule SB attachment, Summary of Plan Provisions: participants most recently hired before 1 January 2002 who were age 55 and above as of 1 January 2017 have an accrued benefit equal to the larger of the Account Balance and Final Average Compensation structures; those under 55 on that date had Final Average Compensation benefits frozen as of 31 December 2016 and moved to the Account Balance structure; participants rehired after 31 December 2001 accrue under the Account Balance structure.
- Final Average Pay formula for Participation Service after 31 December 1995: 1.25% of Final Average Compensation plus 0.50% of the excess over Social Security Covered Compensation, times years of Participation Service, total Participation Service limited to 35 years. Final Average Compensation for service on or after 1 January 1996: highest 5 consecutive years of Pension Covered Compensation in the last 10 calendar years. Same attachment. Legacy Farmland, Wausau, Cooperative Services, NLICARP (Provident) and Harleysville formulas are not restated here.
- Participants accruing Final Average Pay benefits have received interest credits but no pay credits on their Account Balance since 1 January 2010. Same attachment.
- The age range of the frozen group today is arithmetic on the 2017 test date, not a figure from the filing. Schedule SB line 26 for plan year 2024 shows that about 2,750 of about 5,058 active participants in this plan were 55 or older at the start of 2024 (summed from the published table; cells under 20 participants are masked).
- Lump sum rules: audited financial statements attached to the same filing, Note 1. Hired before 1 January 2014: under $25,000 the lump sum is limited to the account balance; over $25,000 the lump sum is the greater of $25,000 or 25% of the cash balance account. From 1 January 2014: a lump sum of the entire account balance only to the extent it does not exceed $50,000. How these limits apply to a frozen Final Average Pay benefit is not stated in the filing.
- December 2024 group annuity purchase and limited-time lump sum offer: same Note 1.
- Early retirement: age 55 and 3 years of vesting service, Schedule SB attachment. Age 52 for involuntary termination: Nationwide Retirement Plan summary plan description, January 2018, not confirmed in the 2024 filing.
- Funded status is deliberately not published. The filing contains two Schedule SB pages reporting different funding target attainment percentages.
Account Balance pay credits
- Pay credit schedule, audited financial statements for plan year 2024, Note 1, by length of service through 31 December of the prior year: 0 to 35 months 3%; 36 to 107 months 4%; 108 to 179 months 5%; 180 to 263 months 6%; 264 months or more 7%. An additional credit applies to pay above the Social Security taxable wage base: 3% in the first band and 4% in the others.
- The Schedule SB attachment in the same filing states the bands as 0-3, 4-9, 10-15, 16-22 and over 22 years of Accrual Service on the first day of each plan year. The rates match; the boundaries are worded differently. This page uses the audited note. Your plan document governs.
- Interest credits: 30-year Treasury rate as defined by the plan, never less than 3.25%. Opening balances were set on 1 January 2002 at the present value of the Final Average Pay benefit accrued to 31 December 2001.
- The top rung has no upper bound. It is drawn at 72 months, a drawing decision, not a plan term. No figure on this page depends on it.
Nationwide Savings Plan
- Nationwide Savings Plan, EIN 31-4177100, PN 334, Form 5500 for plan year 2024, received 2025-10-14, with audited financial statements. Match: 50% of the first 8% of participant contributions for 2023 and 2024; after-tax contributions not matched. Vesting: ratably over five years, 100% after 60 months of vesting service.
- Self-directed brokerage accounts at Fidelity: $549,640,000 at 31 December 2024 and $454,665,000 at 31 December 2023, statements of net assets. Pension feature code 2R on line 8a.
- Net assets available for benefits $8,387,443,000 at 31 December 2024; 40,008 participants with account balances at year end (line 6g(2)); 15,168 separated participants entitled to future benefits (line 6c). The average is arithmetic on those two figures.
- Workforce reduction: Insurance Journal, 30 July 2024, reporting Nationwide's plan to reduce headcount by about 5% over the following year, concentrated in property and casualty and supporting functions.