How do I sign up?
What the plan is — and what it isn’t
The Advantages Retirement Plan™ is a group retirement plan designed to help members of the physician community achieve a foundational level of retirement savings in a cost-effective manner. Designing a cost-effective, easy-to-use plan meant saying no to many potential features. For example, the plan is not:
- A marketplace for investment options, with numerous choices of funds, other than target-date funds, and individual stocks to choose from
- An individual wealth management model
- An all-purpose savings program, to help you save for a house, your child’s education, or other non-retirement purposes
- A mechanism for saving within your corporation or for making non-registered investments — it is for registered products only, such as RRSPs/RRIFs and TFSAs
What you need to know before signing up
To be eligible to join the plan, you must be:
- An OMA member or the spouse/common-law partner of an OMA member
- A resident of Ontario (plan enrolment for extra-provincial members is under consideration)
Note that all members age 18 or above, including retired members, are eligible to join the plan.
It is advised you use a desktop or laptop computer to enrol in the plan, and the experience has been optimized for the following browsers: Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Edge.
Information you will need for enrolment
- Your Social Insurance Number (required by the Canada Revenue Agency)
- Your or your spouse/common-law partner’s OMA number
- Your approximate annual pre-tax income after overhead
- The approximate amount of your existing savings for retirement
- The transit, institution and account numbers for the personal bank account you would like linked to the plan for future contributions or withdrawals
- Your Registered Retirement Savings Plan and Tax-Free Savings Account contribution room (view current CRA limits)
What to expect during the enrolment process
The process takes 20-30 minutes on average to complete, and you can always save your progress and continue the enrolment process later.
During enrolment, you will make a few key decisions (which you can always change in the future):
- Set a target retirement age
- Set a target for how much income you want to receive in retirement
- Determine which of two options you want to use to contribute to the plan: monthly contributions or the transfer of an existing TFSA, RRSP, or Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF). After you’ve enrolled, you’ll be able to make lump-sum contributions.
- Choose from one of nine investment options from the plan’s investment manager, BlackRock. Each option is a diversified target-date fund based on its time horizon
- Choose how much of your monthly contributions, if you have selected this option, to allocate to your TFSA versus your RRSP account
- If you are age 50 or older, consider whether the purchase of guaranteed lifetime income should be part of your savings strategy
If you need help during the enrolment process
- You will be able to access education articles and links relevant to each of the decisions you’ll be asked to make.
- You can always contact OMA Insurance staff with questions about the plan or to help you access the resources useful in your decision-making. The role of OMA Insurance staff is to provide education on the plan. They are not licensed to provide investment advice on the target-date fund but can provide advice on the guaranteed lifetime annuity product as it is an insurance contract.
What about guaranteed lifetime income?
If you are interested in participating in the plan’s group annuity, or guaranteed lifetime income program, we encourage you to speak to an OMA Insurance advisor by emailing info@omainsurance.com.
