The details Australians should not ignore as annual superannuation statements land in inboxes

Annual superannuation statements are about to land in inboxes across the country, offering Australians a chance to check their retirement savings and spot potential red flags.

Canstar Data Insights director Sally Tindall said the annual statement is a “treasure trove” of information, warning Australians to take a closer look at their retirement savings rather than simply filing the documents away.

“There’s quite a few pages. It’s worth doing the read of it all,” she told Sunrise on Tuesday.

“You’re going to see your account balance. You can see how many contributions your employer has made. You can see how your investment performed over one year, five years, sometimes even longer.

Tindall warned the checklist of things Australians should be looking for in the statement is long but can be done quite quickly.

“You want to check that your personal information is right,” she said.

“You want to make sure your super fund has your tax file number. It won’t probably list it on your statement, but it’ll just say supplied or verified, something like that.

“You want to make sure your employer has been putting in the right amount because we’ve just had a full financial year where the super guarantee is 12 per cent. So you need to have contributions in there from your employer of 12 per cent of your pre-tax pay.

“Check your beneficiaries. That’s a really easy one to update. If you don’t have the right beneficiaries in place, you can do it in a matter of minutes online or on the app.

“Check for multiple accounts because that’s going to eat away at your profits.

“Then the big stuff, obviously. So checking your returns, checking the fees, and checking that you’re on track for retirement.”

Tindall said it can be “difficult” to determine if a superannuation account is performing well.

She said the average five-year return for a balanced fund is 6.1 per cent, while the average among the top five funds in Canstar’s database is 7.5 per cent.

“The difference between 7.5 and 6.1 might not sound like much but, say a 30-year-old who has their typical wage, typical super balance, has it in an account that’s regularly earning 7.5 per cent instead of 6.1 per cent — by the time they get to 67 and retire, they will have almost $250,000 more in their super fund, and that’s adjusted for inflation,” she said.