A group scheme is a pension or protection plan an employer sets up for its staff as one arrangement rather than one policy per person. True Wealth sets up and runs four kinds for Irish businesses: a company pension (a group PRSA or a master trust), death in service cover, group income protection and group health insurance, with ongoing financial planning advice for your staff built in. We are a Central Bank regulated, whole of market broker in Portlaoise working with employers across Ireland, and we quote every main Irish provider for every scheme we set up.
The page below explains what each scheme is, what it costs, how it compares with auto-enrolment, and what your employees get out of it. If you would rather skip the reading, the form on this page takes two minutes and a senior advisor comes back with a quote.
Auto-enrolment or your own company pension scheme?
Since 1 January 2026 the State’s auto-enrolment scheme, My Future Fund, enrols employees aged 23 to 60 who earn €20,000 or more and are not already in a pension through their job. Contributions start at 1.5% of earnings from the employee and 1.5% from the employer, with the State adding €1 for every €3 the employee pays in. The rates rise in three-year steps to 6% from the employee and 6% from the employer by year ten, on earnings up to €80,000. An employer who does not enrol staff or pay the contributions faces penalties that run into tens of thousands of euro.
Auto-enrolment is the floor, not the ceiling, and it is the comparison every employer should make before deciding anything. An employee in a company pension scheme that meets the minimum contribution rules is not enrolled in My Future Fund, so a business can choose which route it takes.
| My Future Fund (auto-enrolment) | Your own company pension scheme | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it covers | Employees aged 23 to 60 earning €20,000 or more who have no pension at work | Whoever you decide: all staff, staff after a probation period, or by grade |
| Employer cost | 1.5% of earnings now, rising to 6% by year ten, capped at €80,000 of earnings | Whatever you set, from a few per cent to the Revenue maximum; many SMEs start at 5% |
| What the employee gets on top | A State top-up of €1 for every €3 they pay, worth about 25% | Income tax relief at their highest rate, 40% for anyone earning over €44,000 |
| Who picks the funds | The State scheme, with a limited default | You and your advisor, from the provider’s full range |
| Tax for the business | Employer contributions are deductible | Employer contributions are deductible, no benefit in kind, no employer PRSI |
| Staff who earn under €20,000 or are under 23 | Not covered | Can be included |
| Death in service and income protection | Not included | Can be added as part of the same arrangement |
| Who runs it | The State agency | The provider and True Wealth, with contributions collected by payroll deduction |
The line that matters most for a business with well-paid staff is the tax relief. A higher-rate taxpayer putting €100 a month into their own company scheme pays €60 after relief. In My Future Fund they pay the full €100 and the State adds €33. For a 40% taxpayer, the company scheme is worth more every month, and that is before the employer contribution.
What is a group pension scheme?
A group pension scheme is one arrangement that holds a pension for each employee, with contributions collected through payroll. In Ireland a small or medium employer has two ways to set one up.
| Group PRSA | Master trust | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A Personal Retirement Savings Account for each employee, arranged as a group with one provider | A multi-employer occupational pension scheme run by a professional trustee, with a section for your company |
| Suits | Businesses from one employee up, and anyone who wants the least administration | Businesses with a larger payroll or an existing occupational scheme to move across |
| Trustee duties for the employer | None | None, the master trust’s trustee carries them |
| Employer contributions | Allowed and deductible, not a benefit in kind, up to 100% of the employee’s salary | Allowed and deductible, within Revenue’s funding limits |
| Employee contributions | Relief at the employee’s highest rate through payroll | Relief at the employee’s highest rate through payroll |
| If an employee leaves | The PRSA is theirs and goes with them | Their benefit stays in the scheme or transfers out |
| Charges | Standard PRSA charges are capped at 5% of each contribution and 1% a year of the fund | Set by the master trust; we compare them in euro |
Most of the single-employer occupational schemes that Irish companies ran for decades have moved into master trusts since the EU pensions rules changed in 2021, because running a trust board for one company became expensive. For a business with fewer than fifty staff, a group PRSA is usually the simpler answer. We compare both for your payroll.
What does a company pension cost the employer?
Three things decide the cost: how many employees you include, what percentage you contribute, and the salary roll. Employer contributions are a trading expense, so a company paying corporation tax at 12.5% recovers an eighth of them in tax, and there is no employer PRSI on a pension contribution, which there is on salary.
Take a company with twelve employees on an average salary of €45,000, a salary roll of €540,000.
| Auto-enrolment, year one | Company scheme at 5% | |
|---|---|---|
| Employer contribution | 1.5% of €540,000 = €8,100 a year | 5% of €540,000 = €27,000 a year |
| Corporation tax saved at 12.5% | €1,013 | €3,375 |
| Employer PRSI saved compared with paying it as salary | Not applicable | About €3,000 at 11.4% |
| Net cost to the company | About €7,100 | About €20,600 |
| What each employee sees going in from the employer | €675 a year | €2,250 a year |
The auto-enrolment figure triples by year ten as the rate climbs to 6%, so the gap narrows over time. The difference in year one is that the company scheme puts a visible, meaningful amount into each employee’s name now, and the employee’s own contribution attracts relief at 40% rather than a 25% top-up.
Death in service cover and group income protection are priced separately, per scheme, on the age profile and salaries of the staff covered. We quote them from every main Irish provider on the same form.
What is death in service cover and how much does it pay?
Death in service cover, also called group life assurance or group life insurance, pays a lump sum to an employee’s family if the employee dies while working for you. It is set as a multiple of salary, commonly two, three or four times, and Revenue allows a lump sum of up to four times the employee’s salary to be paid tax free. The premium is a deductible expense for the employer and is not a benefit in kind for the employee.
Cover is written on the group, so there is usually no medical underwriting for the staff included up to a non-medical limit, which is why a group life scheme can cover a 55-year-old with a health condition that would make individual cover expensive or impossible. For the employer it is a modest premium; for a family it is the difference between managing and not.
Group life schemes can be set up on their own, with no pension attached, from small headcounts. Several providers write them, including one that returned to the Irish group market in 2026, so quotes are worth comparing rather than renewing by default.
How does group income protection work?
Group income protection, sometimes called group PHI, pays an employee a replacement income if they cannot work because of illness or injury for longer than a deferred period. The benefit is typically 50% to 75% of salary, less the State Illness Benefit, and it is paid through payroll until the employee returns to work, reaches retirement age or the scheme’s benefit term ends.
The deferred period is the number of weeks the employee has to be out before the benefit starts, usually 13, 26 or 52 weeks, and it is the main lever on the premium. An employer with a generous sick-pay policy chooses a longer deferred period and pays less. Schemes are available from as few as three employees. The premium is deductible for the employer, and the benefit is taxed as income when paid to the employee.
The practical point for an employer is this: a long-term absence is one of the most expensive things that can happen to a small business, both for the person and for the company carrying the role. Group income protection moves that cost to the insurer, and most schemes include early-intervention support that helps people back to work sooner.
What does group health insurance for staff include?
Group health insurance covers your employees under one company plan, with the premium paid by the business. The plan we recommend for staff goes well beyond hospital cover. It includes a digital doctor with unlimited fast access to a GP’s advice and prescriptions by chat, phone or video, express care clinics for minor injuries and illnesses with urgent care access in minor injury clinics across Ireland, and a 24/7 nurse line for non-emergency medical advice.
On the preventative side, staff get money back on gym memberships, fitness wearables and personal trainers, health screening that includes cardiac, sleep apnoea, bone density and metabolic testing, an essential health check that measures key blood markers, and bespoke wellbeing programmes delivered by wellbeing consultants. Specialist services cover female health, fertility and maternity, men’s health, menopause, back and neck physiotherapy, independent counselling for mental health, and an international second opinion for anyone diagnosed with a serious condition.
For the employer the premium is a deductible expense. For the employee it is a benefit in kind, and they claim the medical insurance tax credit on it. The practical return is staff who are seen sooner, treated sooner and back at work sooner, and a benefit that every candidate recognises on day one.
What do employees get from accessible financial planning advice?
A pension that staff do not understand is a benefit they do not value. Every group scheme True Wealth sets up gives each employee an advisor they can call on for as long as they need, not a one-off session. The advisor looks at their goals, their current financial plan and whether they are on track to meet their personal and financial goals, and the relationship carries on as their circumstances change.
Employees bring their own questions too: a deferred member pension from a previous job, mortgage advice, health cover, savings, or whether they should put more into the scheme. Staff within a few years of retirement get a retirement planning review of their own, covering the lump sum, the ARF or annuity decision and the State pension, so nobody reaches 65 without a plan. For the employer this is the part that turns a line in the payroll into something people talk about. For the employee it is advice they would otherwise pay for or never get.
How do key person and shareholder protection protect the business?
A group scheme looks after the staff. Business protection looks after the company itself, and most owners put the two in place together.
Key person cover pays the company a lump sum if a director or an employee the business depends on dies or is diagnosed with a serious illness. The money covers lost profit, the cost of a replacement and any loan the person had guaranteed, so the business keeps trading while it recovers. Shareholder protection, sometimes called co-director insurance, pays the surviving shareholders the money to buy a deceased shareholder’s shares from their estate, under a legal agreement drawn up in advance. The family gets fair value in cash and the business stays with the people running it. Partnership insurance does the same job for a partnership.
Both are quoted on the person’s age, health and the sum needed, and both can be written in the company’s name. We set up the cover, the agreement and the review, and we quote every main Irish provider on the same form as the staff scheme.
What about benefits for the directors themselves?
The company can fund the directors’ own retirement as well as the staff scheme, usually through a master trust section or a company-funded PRSA with a higher contribution rate than the staff receive. Executive income protection pays a director’s income if they cannot work, with the premium paid by the company. Our self-employed and directors page covers the pension side in detail, and our business owner financial plan covers wealth extraction, retirement relief and entrepreneur relief for an owner planning an exit. Tell us what you want for the directors on the form and the same advisor handles it.
Already have a benefits package? We review and benchmark it
Many employers come to us with a scheme that was set up years ago and never looked at since. We review the whole package: contribution rates, charges, fund choice, cover levels, the insurers on risk and the premiums being paid, against what the Irish market offers today and against what businesses of your size and sector now provide. The review tells you in plain figures whether to keep, change or move each part, what staff value and what they do not, and what a competitor for your staff is likely to be offering. There is no charge for the review and no obligation to move anything.
How do we set up a scheme?
- Tell us about the business. Headcount, roughly what people earn, what you have in place today and what you want to put in place. The form on this page covers it.
- We design the scheme. Which product, what contribution rate, which staff and from when, with the auto-enrolment comparison in euro.
- We quote every main Irish provider. Charges, funds, death in service and income protection rates, side by side.
- You choose. We set it up with the provider and handle the paperwork. Contributions are collected by payroll deduction.
- We brief your staff. Group session, then one-to-one meetings for anyone who wants one.
- We run it. New joiners added, leavers handled, an annual review, and a senior financial advisor your staff can call on whenever they need to.
Give your staff the package that keeps them.
Headcount and a rough salary roll are enough to start. We quote every main Irish provider and set the package up for you.
Already in auto-enrolment? You can still move to your own scheme
Many businesses were enrolled into My Future Fund in January 2026 because they had nothing in place at the time. That is not a permanent decision. An employer can set up a qualifying company scheme afterwards and move staff into it, and the contributions already made to My Future Fund stay invested in the employee’s name. The comparison is the same one above: what your staff get in tax relief, what you get in deductions, and who picks the funds.
The timing worth knowing: contribution rates in My Future Fund step up every three years, so the cost of staying in it rises on a fixed schedule whether or not it suits the business.
Worked example: a twenty-person company in Portlaoise
Orla runs an engineering firm with twenty staff on a salary roll of €960,000. In January 2026 the company was enrolled into My Future Fund at 1.5%, costing it €14,400 a year. She wants to keep good people and has lost two engineers to a larger competitor with a pension and death in service.
She sets up a group PRSA with a 5% employer contribution for everyone, four times salary death in service cover, and income protection with a 26-week deferred period to match her sick-pay policy. The pension contribution is €48,000 a year, which after corporation tax relief and the employer PRSI she no longer pays on that money costs the company about €36,600. Death in service and income protection are quoted per scheme and added to that.
Each engineer on €55,000 now sees €2,750 a year from the company go into a pension in their own name, can add their own contribution at 40% relief, has €220,000 of life cover for their family at no cost to them, and gets an hour with an advisor to put it all in context. The two who left were not offered any of that.
