How a little care can grow your super balance
04 April 2025
5
min read
As a nurse or midwife, you’re always there, ready to care, but it's equally important that you care about your own financial future.
Understanding your super is an important first step in ensuring you’ll have a comfortable retirement.
You can do this by:
- making sure you’re getting all the super you're entitled to
- taking steps to grow your super when possible; and
- understanding how insurance works in super.
1. Get your super
Unlike office workers who mostly work a 9 to 5 day, as a nurse or midwife you’re often on shifts at all times of the day or night.
Depending on when or where your shifts are, you may be eligible for different shift and penalty allowances. In some cases, you may also be entitled to have superannuation paid on those allowances. If you’re a Queensland Health employee you receive shift and penalty allowances. If you’re in private health you’ll need to check your work agreement.
Your employer needs to pay you super on what is called Ordinary Times Earnings or OTE. But what is defined as OTE can depend on what Enterprise Agreement you have with your employer. This table shows when a payment is OTE and when your employer should be paying you super.
| Payment |
Salary or wages |
OTE and super must be paid |
|
Overtime hours over and above the ordinary hours stated in an award or agreement
|
Yes |
No |
|
Overtime where the ordinary hours of work are not stated in an award or agreement, or not separated from other hours
|
Yes – all hours worked |
Yes – all hours worked |
|
Casual employee shift loadings
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Casual employee overtime payments
|
Yes |
No |
|
Piece-rates – no ordinary hours of work stated
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Allowance by way of unconditional extra payment (for example, the employee has complete discretion on whether to spend the allowance)
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Expense allowance expected to be used in full
|
No |
No |
|
Danger or site allowance (these are OTE unless they are intended to offset particular expenses)
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
On-call allowance outside ordinary hours of work
|
No |
No |
|
Hourly on-call allowance for ordinary hours of work for doctors
|
Yes |
Yes |
Source: ATO List of payments that are ordinary time earnings | Australian Taxation Office
2. Grow your super
You can also build your super by consolidating your accounts and making additional contributions.
If you’ve ever changed jobs, moved house or changed your name, you might have multiple accounts and some super you've lost track of. Combining all your super into one account, could reduce the fees you pay on multiple accounts.1
To search for lost super, you can go to Member Online. Through Member Online, you can search for a full list of any super accounts you have with other super funds and any ATO-held super that may belong to you.
Salary sacrificing into your super means putting some of your salary into your super account before you pay tax on it.
Your super fund will tax these contributions at 15% (but if your income is over $250,000 they are taxed at 30%). For most people this will be lower than your marginal tax rate, which means you pay less tax while boosting your retirement savings. The sacrificed component of your total salary package is not counted as assessable income for tax purposes.
You can salary sacrifice a percentage, or a dollar amount every pay period. Speak to your employer if you wish to do this.
You can also add after-tax contributions to your super as a one-off or regular payments. You’ve already paid tax on this money, which means it might be money you have in your bank account, so there’s no more tax to pay when we receive it in your super.
Caps on your contributions
Making additional contributions to help grow your super can help you save for your retirement. But you should be aware of superannuation contribution caps set by the government. Contributing too much could mean you pay extra tax.
3. How insurance works
You may automatically have Death cover, Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) cover and, in some cases, Income Protection cover through your super.
You can easily find how much insurance cover you have with your Accumulation account in Member Online, our app, or your annual statement.
Everyone’s insurance needs are unique and can change over time, so it’s important to review your cover. Our Insurance Needs Calculator can help you work out how much Death cover, TPD cover and Income Protection cover you may need.
You’re in control of what happens to your super, including any insurance, when you die.
Your super doesn’t automatically form part of your estate. So, it’s important you let us know who to leave your super to.
There are rules about who you can nominate to receive your super. Generally, a super beneficiary is someone who is dependent on you at the time of your death. You can nominate one or more of your dependents.
Tell us who to leave your super to by nominating your beneficiaries.
1. Before you consolidate your super, please consider if the timing is right and if you will lose access to benefits such as insurance or pension options, or if there are tax implications.