Consolidating your super

To consolidate or not to consolidate?

Some of the reasons you might want to move multiple super accounts into one include:

• paying only one set of fees: you pay administration and other fees on each super account you have
• less paperwork: one fund means only one lot of paperwork (such as annual statements, funds reports)
• there’s less chance of you ending up with lost super accounts if you only have one to keep track of and only one fund to tell if you change your address
• it’s easier to manage your investment strategy if you have only one account rather than having your super spread across several funds and in a variety of investment options.

Reasons for keeping more than one fund include:

• you may lose insurance benefits you won’t get from another fund
• sometimes it isn’t possible for you to transfer your money out of an account (for instance, if you are in a defined benefit fund)
• you may actually want more than one super fund. The main reason for this is to take advantage of cheap insurance in a certain fund or increase the variety of investment options.

Check out our downloadable PDF:
Checklist of things to think about before you consolidate your super accounts.

How I saved hundreds on my super: Jesse, 24, uni student

I used the myGov website to find all seven of the super accounts I had. I was pretty stoked to find out I had a couple of thousand dollars in super that I didn’t know about. After comparing all the info on the different fund websites to see which of the super funds worked best for me, I used the myGov website to move all my super into the one super account. I thought it was going to be really difficult, but it was really easy. Now my super’s all in one account, I reckon I’m saving about $300 a year in fees.”