The light engineering sector’s pension fund PME is to increase its premiums because of falling financial reserves, news agency ANP reports on Friday.

The increase will be ‘small’ but it will happen, fund director Hans van der Windt told tv programme Nova.
PME, which has 680,000 members, is the first Dutch pension fund to announce an increase in premiums because of the turmoil on the stock market. PME made the decision after its coverage ratio – the amount of reserves it needs to pay out its pensions – fell to 112%.
On Thursday, the two biggest Dutch pension funds ABP (civil service) and PZW (health workers) both announced their reserves had shrunk. Neither has plans to increase premiums yet. ‘That would be a last resort,’ a PZW spokesman told the AD newspaper.
A spokesman for ABP said the fund would talk about whether or not to increase pensions in line with inflation in December. ‘An increase in premiums would only be an issue if the situation became a lot worse,’ the spokesman told the AD.
The sector-based pension fund association VB told the Telegraaf it expected a number of funds would not increase pensions in line with inflation next year.
The Financieele Dagblad reports that ABP is considering taking legal action against financial service group Fortis, which has since been split up and partly privatised.
‘We were not given good information by Fortis management in June,’ head of asset management Roderick Munsters told the paper. That month ABP spent almost €500m buying Fortis shares for €10 a share. They are now worth around €1.