How much do you pay in fees on your super?

¹ Lifetime of difference, SuperRatings Pty Ltd, 30 June 2009. 
General: The universe of industry funds and the universe of master trust are to be reasonably comparable
Calculations: Starting account balance and initial salary need to be input for desired comparison. The employer asset size of $150,000 is accumulated at a rate of 11.6% on a yearly basis. Inflation rate of 2.5% and 3.5% wage increased rate. 9% Superannuation Guarantee contribution. No additional salary sacrifice or voluntary contributions. 15% contribution tax, 7.225% is assumed as investment return constantly to retirement. It is calculated from ASIC's FIDO model (gross of taxes and fees 8.5%) but with taxes of 15% subtracted. Income is paid at the end of every year (i.e. compounded annually). Contributions are made quarterly in arrears (i.e. the first contribution is made 3 months after joining fund). Annual salary is deemed to be total assessable income for the purposes of Superannuation contribution surcharge calculations. Explicit costs deducted from members’ accounts (e.g. member fee) is subject to a 15% tax allowance.
Fees: Any contribution fees, entry fees, exit fees, and/or additional adviser fees are excluded from the default position of this model.
All fees (asset based admin fees, investment fees and member fees) are deducted from the account at the end of each period (year).
Asset size discounts on fixed dollar member fee are used to meet the different account balance of each scenario.
Asset based admin fee is also subject to different level of employer asset sizes (i.e. asset size discounts are used on each scenario, if applicable).
Methodology: The annual account balance of any selected fund from Fund A and Benchmark Fund is used to plot the projection graph.
The earnings forgone is derived from the following formula; also refer to ASIC FIDO calculator for details. Earnings Forgone = Final Account Balance without Fees - Final Account Balance with Fees - Total Fees.
Account balance at year i is calculated by the following formula,             
(Account Balance) i = (Account Balance)i-1 * (1+ return) + Contribution * (1+ return) – (Account Balance+contribution) i-1 * (Admin fee + Investment fee) – Member fee*(1-contribution tax deduction) assumptions.
An average fund is based on the Master Trust Average as per the definition and assumptions outlined in the SuperRatings Lifetime of difference calculator.

² While AustralianSuper has paid Chant West a fee for making the service available to you, Australian Super has no influence over the results and ratings and does not accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused by the service.

† Total Expense Ratio report, supplied by Rainmaker Information February 2010.
The average retail fund was on average 2.6 times more expensive than AustralianSuper. AustralianSuper's total expense ratio (TER) ranges from a high of 1.59% down to a low of 0.92%, whilst the average retail fund TER ranged from 8.13% down to 1.17%. This figure will vary according to which product is selected (eg super or pension), workplace size discounts obtained and account balance. Data used within this report was sourced from the Rainmaker Benchmarking Report that contained the 2009 annual fee survey covering 540 separate active not for profit super and retirement funds and master trusts across more than 2,000 fee options.