Applying for Your Pension

Unless we tell you otherwise, you do not need to do anything else at this time.

Note: If you are retiring reciprocally, you must apply for retirement with each of your reciprocal systems at the same time. We cannot approve your IMRF pension until we have confirmation from all of your reciprocal systems that you have filed an application with them.

Your pension effective date is the official date that you are considered an IMRF retiree. This date is used when determining other IMRF benefits, such as the 13th payment and surviving spouse eligibility.

Your pension effective date is the first day of the month after you stop working for your employer. For example, if you retire on September 15:

You will receive service credit for the month of September
Your pension will be effective on October 1

Your pension effective date will probably not be the date when you receive your first pension payment.

In most cases, you will get your first pension payment about eight weeks after your pension effective date. (This may take longer if you are retiring reciprocally.) Your initial pension payments are based upon an estimated amount:

IMRF wants to start your pension payments as soon as possible, so your first few pension payments will be estimated amounts until we receive your final wage information from your employer.

This estimated amount uses the current wage and service credit information we have at the time of your retirement, and is based upon IMRF’s Standard pension payment option.

We will continue to adjust this initial amount as needed, as we receive additional wage information from your employer.

After we receive your final wage information from your employer, we can calculate your final pension amount.

After your claim is approved, we will send you your ”Preliminary Benefit Statement – Pension” letter. Your ”Preliminary Benefit Statement – Pension” letter will tell you which pension payment options you are eligible for and any refunds at retirement you may be eligible for. 

You let us know which payment option you want by selecting your choice on your ”Preliminary Benefit Statement – Pension” letter and returning it to us.

Depending upon your final pension amount and which payment option you choose, we may have either overpaid you or underpaid you during the time you received estimated payments. We will make any final adjustments as needed to “true up” the amount you should have received.