How to model a Disability Support Pension (DSP)

Please note that including the Disability Support Pension (DSP) is not officially part of the websolve. So:

• It is possible to model the numbers correctly, if you contact support to make a background adjustment

• You may need to adjust some wording in the results because it will mention the Age Pension, instead of the DSP

If it is a complex case, you will need to submit the case to the Optimo Financial SDS.

Modelling the Disability Support Pension (DSP)

Step 1: Enter your data

Enter the details of your case as follows:

1. All of the case's details as per usual including:

   1. the individual's partner

   2. all assets and loans

   3. If you have income that is not assessable for the pension, make a note to tell support so we can change its status

   4. The carer's allowance (if any) can be entered at the Cash flows sub-step (under the Cash flows & Goals step on the top menu), as an 'Income' with type as 'Non taxable'

Make sure you do not include these items, because Pathfinder will calculate them for you:

• Income from the Disability Support Pension

• Rent assistance

Step 2: Ask Optimo support to make a background adjustment to include the Disability Support Pension (DSP)

Please note that if the case is complex, we may suggest you submit the case to the Optimo Financial SDS.

When you've entered your case, you can ask Optimo Support to adjust the case to allow the Disability Support Pension:

1. The support email address is in the header of Pathfinder or on Optimo Financial Support

2. In your email, please include:

   1. The name of the case and the individual receiving the DSP

   2. The portion of the first year of the projection the individual will be receiving the pension e.g. 100% for the whole financial year, 50% for half the financial year

   3. Whether the individual is expected to receive the pension for the entire analysis or what year it is expected to stop

   4. The names of any income you've entered that are not assessable for the pension (in addition to the carer's payment) as we will need to manually change the status to 'Not assessable'

3. Please also log out of the case, so we can make the adjustments without getting version control issues

Optimo support will:

• Change the individual to be eligible for the DSP according to your instructions

• Adjust income to be not assessable, if required

• Let you know when the case is ready for you to edit again

Step 3: Re-solve your case and check the results

When your case is ready to edit again:

1. You can log back in to your case

2. Check any additional information included from support in their email and/or the 'Scenario notes'

3. Re-solve all your scenarios to refresh the results with the background constraints applied. Details for how to check the results are explained in the next section.

4. Also note that if you copy a scenario, the background constraints will be included in the copy too.

Disability support pension results (and what is not included)

The results for the Disability Support Pension are the same as for the Age Pension, which are described in more detail on Retirement Planning and Build Super results.

However, please note that since the disability support pension is not part of the websolve, the wording in the results may need to be corrected by you:

• At the Strategy summary step, the DSP pension is reported in the 'Retire' step and is reported as Age Pension (even if it will be the DSP)

• In the Cash flows report, the DSP is reported as 'Government Pension Payment'

• In the Action items, the DSP will be reported as 'Age Pension' payments and will need to be reviewed and corrected

• In the Detailed reports, in the 'Government Pension (detailed)' report, there is a 'Percentage of year eligible for disability support' line