FAQs

We send member statements out annually, generally between September and December each year. 

You’ll only receive a member statement if you were a member as at 30 June of the previous financial year. If you left Spirit Super during the financial year, you would have been provided with a final statement when you left (some exceptions apply).  

We'll provide your Member statement to you in line with your communication preferences. You can update your preferences in Member Online or by calling us on 1800 005 166. 

Your member statements are available in Member Online in your Inbox.  

If you aren’t set up for online account access, see How do I access my account online? under the Member Online and Spirit Super app section on this page.

Where we can, we’ll provide your documents, including statements and notices of changes to your account, electronically. We’ll email or SMS you when information is ready to view in Member Online.

You can change your communication preferences at any time in Member Online or call us on 1800 005 166. 

You can:

• update your details in Member Online
• complete the Change your details form or
• call us on 1800 005 166.

If you’re changing your name or correcting your date of birth, you’ll need to provide proof of your identity. Refer to the Guide to providing proof of ID fact sheet or call us on 1800 005 166 for more details.

Your Member statement shows your opening balance at the beginning of the financial year, and your closing balance at the end of the financial year.

The difference in your account balance is due to:

Money that goes into your account:

• contributions paid by you, your employer, your spouse or the government
• transfers from other super funds
• investment gains.

Money that comes out of your account:

• applicable taxes, fees and costs
• insurance fees and costs, if applicable
• investment losses
• withdrawals you make
• transfers to other super funds.

If you converted your super account into a pension account during the financial year, any insurance attached to your account would have been cancelled.

The insurance fees on your pension statement reflect amounts paid before your account was transferred and before your insurance was cancelled.

The government restricts when you can access your super. Your super savings are ‘preserved’ until you’re allowed to access your super.

You can access your preserved super when you satisfy a condition of release. For more details, go to Access your super

You can access unrestricted non-preserved benefits at any time. You may need to pay tax if you’re under 60. For more details, read our How super is taxed fact sheet (super members) or our Pension guide for pension members.

If you have a restricted non-preserved benefit, you may be able to access it before your preservation age under certain conditions, such as leaving your employer who contributed to Spirit Super on your behalf. 

We automatically provide default death and total and permanent disablement (TPD) cover when you meet certain eligibility conditions, without the need to provide any health information. The amount of default cover you receive depends on your age and your employer.

If you decide you don’t want default cover, you can cancel your cover at any time:

• through Member Online
• by calling us on 1800 005 166
• by completing the Manage your cover

For more details on insurance with us, including default cover eligibility, types of cover offered and the costs of cover, read our Insurance guide or call us on 1800 005 166.

You may no longer hold cover if you’ve previously told us you’d like to cancel your cover. Your cover will also end on the earliest of:

Cover type	Age cover ends
Default death	70
Default TPD	65
Default income protection	60
Fixed death and/or TPD	70
Fixed income protection	65

• the date you cease to be a member with us
• for death and/or TPD cover, the date that a terminal illness or TPD benefit becomes payable to you under this policy¹
• the date you join the armed forces, excluding the Australian Armed Forces Reserve
• the first day of the month that your Spirit Super account balance is insufficient to pay that month’s insurance cost deduction
• the date your default monthly cover amount falls below $1,000 (default income protection cover)
• the date your account is inactive for a continuous period of 16 months, and you haven’t elected to keep your cover.

¹If death cover is greater than TPD cover and you’re paid a TPD benefit, the death cover will continue but will be reduced by the amount of the TPD benefit paid.

For more details about insurance with us, read our Insurance guide or call us on
1800 005 166

 

The amount of default death and TPD cover you hold depends on your age and your employer. This may change each year on your birthday.

If you don’t want your cover amount to change each year, you can apply to fix your current cover amount or apply for a set level of cover, subject to acceptance by our insurer. You can manage your cover in Member Online or contact us and we’ll be glad to help.

For more details about insurance cover with us, read our Insurance guide

You can apply to update your occupation rating at any time. You can do this by:

• logging in to Member Online
• completing the Occupation rating form.

Applications are subject to acceptance by our insurer. For more details about occupation ratings, read our Insurance guide.

Your Member statement shows information that was current at the time your statement was produced. If you’ve made or updated a beneficiary nomination since then, it won’t show on this Member statement. You can view your current nomination in Member Online.

There are two ways to nominate or update your beneficiaries:

• binding – by form
• non-binding – in Member Online, and by form

Pension accounts also offer a reversionary beneficiary option. Read our Pension guide for more details.

Our forms are available at spiritsuper.com.au/forms.

The kind of nomination you make will depend on your circumstances. There may be tax and other issues to thinking about, so consider getting advice before you make a decision.

Find out more about Beneficiaries.

Your investment is recorded as a number of units. Your account balance is determined as the number of units you hold in each investment option multiplied by the unit price of that option.

All transactions into and out of the fund, including contributions, transfers, withdrawals, pension payments and fees, occur at the current unit price.

Unit prices are calculated by dividing the value of the assets in the option¹ by the number of units issued. As the value of these assets and liabilities can go up or down, the unit prices for the different investment options can also go up or down.

A new unit price will be set, typically each business day² for each investment option, reflecting the changing value of the underlying assets in the investment option/s and transactional and operational costs.

Our unit prices are regularly updated on our website.

¹That’s after allowing for fees, costs (including fees paid to investment managers) and taxes.

²A business day is generally considered to be Monday through Friday and excludes weekends and national public holidays.

The returns shown in Investment performance in your Member statement show the compound average returns for our investment options at the end of the financial year.

Your investment earnings shown in your Account summary indicate the change in value of your account during the financial year.

The earnings on your account won’t match the one-year return of the investment option, even if you held the same investment option for the full financial year.

The amount of investment earnings applied to your account is determined by the option/s you’re invested in and factors such as when contributions were made, the length of time that money was invested in that particular investment option, government taxes, applicable fees and costs and if you left the fund. Past performance doesn’t guarantee that future performance will be the same or similar.

The returns shown on your Member statement are the compound average returns for each investment option as at the end of the financial year. The returns shown on our website are the rolling returns as at the end of the most recent month.

You can check returns for each investment option here. The performance figures shown on our website are net of investment returns, that is, after fees, costs and taxes have been paid.

The government charges a tax on all before-tax (concessional) contributions into super. This includes employer super guarantee contributions, salary sacrifice contributions and personal contributions for which you've claimed a tax deduction. This tax applies to all super – it’s not a fee charged by us.

For more details, read our How super is taxed fact sheet (super members) or our Pension guide. 

If you're eligible, the co-contribution or low income super tax offset will be paid directly into your super account after you've lodged your tax return for the financial year you made the contribution in. The Australian Taxation Office makes most payments between November and January for contributions made in the previous financial year.

If you’re eligible for a payment, this statement will only show the payment received for the financial year before the most recent one. You can view up to date transactions in Member Online.

The ATO will issue recovery notices to super funds requesting an overpayment amount be returned, when a member is no longer entitled to receive the contribution payment. Recovery notices cover overpayments of government contributions including co-contributions and low income super tax offset contributions.

Generally, the ATO will reassess a member’s entitlement to receive government contributions when either amendments are made to a member’s income tax return or when a super fund reports changes to the ATO.

For more information on ATO recovery payments and government contributions including the eligibility rules, visit ato.gov.au or call 13 10 20.

For all members for the period 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023:

The administration fee for a Spirit Super accumulation account was $67.60 plus 0.15% of your account balance each year. The percentage fee was capped at $450 each year. 

The administration fee for a Spirit Super pension account was $67.60 plus 0.10% of your account balance each year. The percentage fee was capped at $450 each year. 

For more details about our current fees and costs, see Super fees and costs if you hold a Spirit Super accumulation account or Pension fees and costs if you have a Spirit Super pension account, or call us on 1800 005 166. 

Your Member statement is a summary of your account over a financial year. If you joined your employer after the end of the financial year, these contributions won’t be shown on this statement. You can view your current transactions in Member Online.

If your employer contributions aren’t showing on your account in Member Online, you should check with your employer which super fund your super contribution entitlements are being paid to.

If you have any questions regarding your workplace Enterprise Agreement and your rights under choice of fund, speak with your employer.

When you opened your Control or Managed Pension with us, we assessed you as eligible for a once-off retirement bonus payment. The bonus was calculated as a percentage of the amount you used to start your pension. The retirement bonus rate for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 financial year was 0.30%.

Find out more about the Retirement bonus.

From 1 July 2019, there’s a limit on the amount of fees that super funds can charge on accounts.

If your account balance for a product offered by Spirit Super is less than $6,000 at 30 June each year (or when you close your account), certain fees and costs charged to you in relation to administration and investments are capped at 3% of the account balance. Any amount charged in excess of that cap during the year must be refunded.

If you’re eligible to receive a refund, this amount shows on your account as PYS fee rebate.

The Protecting Your Super fee rebate doesn’t apply to any insurance fees that apply to your account (including the insurance administration fee) or activity-based fees such as financial advice fees.

For more details about our fees and costs, see Super fees and costs if you hold a Spirit Super accumulation account or Pension fees and costs if you have a Spirit Super pension account, or call us on 1800 005 166

These are the gross amounts that have been deducted directly from your account and are reflected as transactions. This figure doesn’t include any rebates, if applicable. These costs are shown on your Member statement and in your transaction listing in Member Online.

Examples of direct fees and costs include:

• administration fees that cover the day-to-day management of member accounts and the operation of the fund
• advice fees as detailed in a Statement of advice issued to a member by a financial adviser for the provision of personal advice
• insurance fees that cover your cost of insurance. This amount depends on the type of cover you hold, your occupation rating and your age. While net insurance fees are deducted from your account, we're required to disclose the gross costs under Total fees you paid.

For more details, see Super fees and costs if you hold a Spirit Super accumulation account or Pension fees and costs if you have a Spirit Super pension account, or call us on 1800 005 166

These are approximate amounts that have been deducted from your investment. It covers amounts that have reduced the return on your investment but aren’t charged as a fee. Examples of expenses contained in this ratio include:

• the fees charged by investment managers
• transaction costs incurred by the investment managers
• costs imposed by government regulation.

These fees are deducted from the investment returns before they're allocated to your account through the daily determination of unit prices.

If required, an additional amount may be deducted from fund assets held in general reserves, to meet administration expenses that exceed the administration fees and costs deducted from member accounts in a year. It isn’t deducted from your account. 

For more details, see Super fees and costs if you hold a Spirit Super accumulation account or Pension fees and costs if you have a Spirit Super pension account, or call us on 1800 005 166