Contribution Assessment Ceiling (CAC)
The Contribution Assessment Ceiling (CAC) is the legal upper limit of gross income for which contributions have to be paid into the state pension system (Status 2013: €69,600/year). No pension contributions have to be paid on salary components above the CAC. Consequently, no legal pension rights accumulate for these salary components.

Reduced earning capacity

You may claim benefits for reduced earning capacity if you receive a state pension due to a full or partially reduced earning capacity and retire from the employment relationship with Mars. According to the German Social Security Code, persons who for an unforeseeable time are prevented by a reduction in earning capacity due to health reasons from doing at least three hours of paid work a day under the conditions usual on the general labor market, are considered to have a fully reduced earning capacity.  A person who can do between three and six hours of paid work a day only is considered to have a partially reduced earning capacity.

Actuarial interest rate
The actuarial interest rate is aligned to the yield on public bonds outstanding with a medium remaining maturity of four to five years as published by the German Bundesbank. Based on this, Mars defines the actuarial interest rate every quarter.

Retirement gap
The retirement gap describes the difference between your last monthly net income which you receive before entering retirement, and the amount of your state pension in the first month of your retirement. So as to not have to make any cuts during retirement, you have to close this gap as much as possible. And this is what we address together with the Mars Pension Plan.

Vested entitlements

“Vested” (or non-lapsable) means: you keep your entitlements to a benefit from the Mars Pension Plan, also if you leave the company. In the Mars Pension Plan Classic, all benefits are already vested – this applies to the Mars financed Pension Plan as well as to the plans financed by you.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

The consumer price index is an important indicator for the annual inflation rate. The CPI measures the average change over time in the prices paid by private households for a market based on the most frequently purchased consumer goods and services. For this purpose, more than 300,000 individual prices are captured every month.