If you are not contributing at a 7% level on July 1, 2018, your salary reduction contributions will automatically increase by 1% at that time. Every July 1 thereafter, your contribution level will increase another 1% (unless you choose a different level or notify Empower Retirement each year that you want to opt out of the Plan’s automatic escalation feature), until your salary reduction contributions reach 7% of your eligible compensation.

You can elect to make a different percentage contribution to the Plan or to not contribute on Empower Retirement’s website. Each year, Empower Retirement will send a communication reminding you of the upcoming automatic escalation. If you do not want your salary reduction contributions increased for the year, you must follow the instructions from Empower Retirement on how to opt out of the automatic escalation feature.

Your employer may make contributions to your Plan account. Your employer generally will match, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the first 3% of eligible compensation you contribute each pay period. Your employer generally will also make an additional basic contribution of 5% of your compensation.

Your employer determines which employees are eligible for matching or basic contributions – if you have questions about whether you are eligible for employer contributions, please contact your employer.

The Plan lets you invest your account in a number of different investment funds. Unless you choose a different investment fund or funds, your Plan account will be invested in the target date default fund based on your assumed retirement age. You can change how your Plan account is invested among the Plan’s offered investment funds on the Empower Retirement website.

Information about the Plan’s investment funds and procedures for changing how your Plan account is invested can be found on the Empower Retirement website.

You are always fully vested in all contributions to the Plan (both employer and employee contributions). Even though you are vested in your entire Plan account, there are limits on when you may withdraw your funds. These limits may be important to you in deciding how much, if any, to contribute to the Plan. Generally, you may only withdraw money after you leave your job, reach age 59½, or become disabled. Also, there is generally an extra 10% tax on distributions before age 59½. Any amount remaining in your Plan account upon your death will be paid to your designated beneficiary. You also can borrow certain amounts from your Plan account, and may be able to withdraw your salary reduction contributions if you have a hardship.

Hardship distributions are limited to the dollar amount of your salary reduction contributions and may not be taken from earnings, matching or basic contributions. Hardship distributions must be for a specified reason – for qualifying medical expenses, costs of purchasing your principal residence (or preventing eviction from or foreclosure on your principal residence, or repairing qualifying damages to your principal residence), qualifying post-secondary education expenses, or qualifying burial or funeral expenses.

Before you can take a hardship distribution, you must have taken other permitted withdrawals and loans from qualifying employer plans, unless doing so would be counter-productive. If you take a hardship distribution, you may not contribute to the Plan or other qualifying employer plans for 6 months. You can learn more about the Plan’s hardship withdrawal and loan rules in the Plan’s summary plan description. You can also learn more about the extra 10% early distribution tax in IRS Publication 575, Pension and Annuity Income.