NYPD Retirement Lesson 9: Reading your pension statement
A Tier 2 Fund statement prints two boxes of figures. This lesson covers how to get it, what each line means, and what it can’t tell you.
The short answer. You ask for your statement on Form 70, and uploaded through webCOPS it’s usually posted within about a day. A Tier 2 statement has two boxes. The first is your own account: your Annuity Savings Fund balance, the required amount, and any shortage or excess. The second is the Fund’s estimate: your pension with and without a final withdrawal, the final withdrawal available to you, your banked VSF and a Death Gamble figure.
Our statement reader explains each line on your own numbers. This lesson is the short version.
From the Fund’s Form 70, its retirement instruction sheets and the Tier 2 booklet, June 2026. Links are at the bottom of this page.
Your pension statement, line by line, in about four minutes. Open on YouTube
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Getting the statement
The form is Form 70, the Pension Statement Request, and one form covers both tiers. Its first instruction is “One request per 30 day period,” so get the request right the first time. It asks which period to cover: the most recent January to December, or the 12 months up to the most recent pay period.
Upload it on webCOPS: no notary, and the Fund’s instruction sheets say the statement is posted to your Docs tab and “Usually takes 24 hours.”
Mail it: it has to be notarized, and the statement comes back by mail in a few business days.
If you’ve already filed for retirement, you get a pension estimate after meeting a retirement processor, and the booklet calls it “only an estimate” (Tier 2 booklet, June 2026, p.16).
Box one: your own account
Annuity Savings Fund (ASF) Balance
Your own contributions plus the 8.25% interest the Fund credits on them (p.7).
Required Amount
The booklet calls it “the amount necessary to remain in the account to receive a retirement benefit with no reduction.” It stops growing once you’re eligible for service retirement (p.7).
Shortage Amount
A balance below the required amount. The booklet names four causes: a pension loan, even one you repaid; stopping your contributions; a service transfer or most buybacks; and back pay from a contract settlement (p.13). A shortage you haven’t paid by retirement cuts your pension for life (p.13).
Excess Amount
Your balance above the required amount. If you leave it in, “the pension will be increased by the actuarial value of the excess” (p.10), so taking it gives that up. Whether it also reduces the pension is a question for the Fund.
Box two: the Fund’s estimate
Service Without Final Withdrawal, and Service With Final Withdrawal
These appear to be the Fund’s estimates of your pension if you take no final withdrawal, and if you take one. The booklet doesn’t describe these lines, so ask the Fund what they include.
Available Final Withdrawal
The cash the Fund is quoting you. The booklet’s ceiling is up to 90% of your required amount, as well as some or all of your excess (p.14). The taxable part has 20% withheld for federal tax unless you choose a direct rollover (p.12). Lesson 11 covers it.
Banked VSF
The VSF DROP, a lump sum for each year you stay past your 20th anniversary and then retire for service (p.20). Lesson 10 covers when it’s paid.
Death Gamble
The Fund’s own name for a benefit that covers active members with over 20 years and members retired for service who are awaiting finalization. It’s never paid to you. It goes to your beneficiary, who “may receive this benefit either as a lump sum payment of the member’s pension reserve accounts or as an annuity for life” (p.29). Lesson 13 covers your beneficiaries.
What the statement can’t tell you
How much of your account is money you already paid tax on. Only the Fund holds that figure.
Whether taking only your excess would reduce your pension, or only give up the increase.
What each pension option would cost you. The Fund presents those costs before your pension is finalized.
Our what to have ready list turns these into questions to ask the Fund, in writing.
This lesson is general, not a recommendation for your own case. If you roll money into an IRA that we manage, we are paid on it. If it stays where it is, we are not. Confirm every figure and date with the New York City Police Pension Fund before acting.