Your retirement fund has a responsibility to inform you about any changes in benefits, but it is not the duty of the fund's trustees to spoon-feed you, says Professor John Murphy, the Pension Funds Adjudicator.
The message from Murphy is that if you don't make the effort to exercise your rights within the fund, don't come crying to him.
Murphy dismissed a complaint by two members of the Tiger Oats Workers Provident Fund who argued that they were not consulted properly about a change in the fund's rules on death benefits.
The provident fund adapted the rules in order to take care of more expensive premiums and snowballing claims on the fund based on HIV related conditions or deaths, high levels of violence and other factors.
Fund members were asked to choose one of two alternatives. The employer spent R500 000 on a campaign to inform members so that they could vote.
"It would seem to me that the fund acted far beyond the call of duty in its consultation process with the members of the fund," Murphy says.
He says the fund "acted sensitively to ensure that the members were adequately informed of the changes before exercising their right to vote in the amended rule".
"Generally trustees are expected to exercise their powers under the rules consistently with their statutory and common law obligations."
Trustees must act with good faith and ensure that adequate and appropriate information is communicated to members of a fund informing them of their rights, benefits and duties in terms of the rules of the fund, Murphy says.
But, he says, "although there is a duty on the fund to inform its members of benefit changes, it is not incumbent on the fund to spoon-feed the members."