SUSORP for Florida Physicians (2026): The Retirement Plan UF, USF, and FSU Medical Faculty Are Actually In — and Why "FRS Pension vs. Investment Plan" Doesn't Apply to You

Florida's state university system runs three retirement structures side by side, and which one applies to you depends on your job classification — not your preference.

• TEAMS and USPS staff (non-faculty administrative and support employees) choose between the FRS Pension Plan and the FRS Investment Plan — the classic defined-benefit-versus-defined-contribution decision most retirement content describes.
• General faculty and A&P (Administrative & Professional) employees get a three-way choice: FRS Pension Plan, FRS Investment Plan, or SUSORP.
• College of Medicine and Health Science Center faculty — you — are carved out of that choice entirely. Per university policy at UF, USF, and FSU (confirmed across each institution's HR documentation), medical faculty are mandatory SUSORP participants. There's no election form for FRS Pension or FRS Investment for you; those boxes don't apply.

This carve-out isn't unique to Florida — it mirrors the same logic behind UT System's TRS-vs-ORP structure and the physician-specific channel we found in the UC Pension Choice system — university systems consistently route clinical faculty into defined contribution structures, on the theory that physician career mobility doesn't fit a pension's long vesting timeline. What's unusual about Florida is how much of the public-facing content never mentions the carve-out at all, leaving physicians to discover it themselves during onboarding.

SUSORP is a qualified defined contribution plan — structurally similar to a 401(k) or 403(b), administered by Florida's Department of Management Services under Chapter 121, Part II of the Florida Statutes.

• Contribution rates (FY 2025–26, per current Florida DMS Information Release 2025-239):
  • Employee: 3.00% of gross biweekly salary, mandatory
  • Employer: approximately 5.14% of gross biweekly salary (confirmed at UF and FSU; verify your specific institution, since employer rates are set by state legislation and Admin/UAL fees layer on top — the employer contribution line on your pay stub will run higher than the amount actually deposited into your account)
• Vesting: immediate. Per FIU's own SUSORP documentation, "employer contributions are immediately 100% vested upon signing enrollment form." This is the single biggest structural difference from the FRS Pension Plan, which carries an 8-year vesting cliff. A physician who leaves after 18 months in SUSORP keeps every dollar the university contributed. The same physician under the FRS Pension Plan would forfeit the entire employer-funded benefit.
• Portability: full. Like UT's ORP or UC's Savings Choice, your SUSORP account is genuinely yours — it travels with you if you leave Florida academic medicine entirely.
• No loans or hardship withdrawals. Unlike many 403(b) plans, SUSORP explicitly prohibits both loans against the account and hardship withdrawals. Plan your emergency fund and liquidity needs accordingly — this account is retirement money, not a backstop.

What this means in practice: SUSORP behaves almost exactly like the "Savings Choice" and "ORP" options in our other university system guides — except at Florida's medical schools, it isn't a choice at all. It's the only door.

Even though you don't choose which plan to join, you do choose who holds it — and this decision has real, compounding consequences that most physicians treat as an afterthought.

The four approved SUSORP providers, statewide, per Florida DMS records:

• Corebridge Financial (formerly AIG/VALIC)
• TIAA
• Equitable (formerly AXA)
• Voya Financial

You must select one within 90 days of your hire date by completing the ORP-MANDATORY form (College of Medicine faculty use this form specifically, in lieu of the standard ORP-ENROLL form general faculty complete) and establishing an account directly with your chosen provider.

Why this decision matters more than it looks: these four providers differ meaningfully in fund lineup, fee structure, and — critically — the mix of mutual funds versus annuity products offered inside the plan. TIAA has historically leaned toward annuity-based options with guaranteed-rate features; Corebridge (VALIC) offers both fixed and variable annuity products alongside mutual fund options. A physician who defaults into a heavily annuity-weighted lineup without understanding the surrender periods and guaranteed-rate mechanics can end up paying materially more in embedded fees than one who selects a low-cost index-fund-forward lineup with the same provider or a different one.

Practical guidance: before your 90-day window closes, request the fund lineup and expense ratio disclosure from each of the four providers (available through each company's Florida-specific ORP portal — Corebridge runs floridaorp.corebridgefinancial.com; TIAA runs a comparable Florida-specific portal). Compare expense ratios directly. A 0.5% difference in annual fund fees, compounded over a 25–30 year academic career, is a genuinely large sum — the same logic behind every fee-conscious recommendation across our investing guides. Don't default into whichever provider your department administrator mentions first; make the comparison yourself.

One institution-specific wrinkle: provider lists have changed over time — MetLife (formerly Brighthouse Financial) was previously an approved SUSORP provider and has since been phased out at the state level. Always verify the current approved list directly through your institution's HR benefits page or the Florida DMS SUSORP provider page before enrolling, since this guide's list reflects verified 2026 data but administrative changes can occur.

Here's the detail buried deepest in Florida university benefits documentation, and the one most likely to be missed entirely: at UF specifically, Health Science Center clinical faculty participate in a second retirement plan on top of SUSORP — commonly referred to as the AEF Retirement Plan (Health Center 403(b) Plan).

Per UF's own faculty affairs documentation: clinical faculty at the Health Science Center participate in the AEF 403(b) plan in addition to SUSORP, with contribution rates mirroring SUSORP's structure — approximately 5.14% employer, 3.00% mandatory employee — automatically enrolled with Fidelity Investments as the plan's dedicated recordkeeper (separate from the four SUSORP providers above).

The practical effect for a UF clinical faculty physician: if both plans apply to your appointment, you may be receiving roughly 10.28% combined employer contribution — SUSORP's ~5.14% plus the Health Center 403(b)'s ~5.14% — rather than the ~5.14% a non-clinical SUSORP participant receives. That's a materially better retirement package than the generic SUSORP description implies, and it's exactly the kind of detail that a physician comparing offers across Florida institutions should confirm directly rather than assume.

Whether this second plan exists at USF, FSU, or UCF specifically, and under what name, varies by institution — UF's Health Science Center Jacksonville and Gainesville campuses clearly document it; other institutions' clinical faculty benefit structures should be confirmed directly with each university's HR benefits office, since this guide found strong documentation for UF's version and weaker public documentation for equivalent structures elsewhere. If you're evaluating offers across multiple Florida medical schools, ask this question explicitly during your offer review: "Beyond SUSORP, is there a second employer-funded retirement plan specific to clinical or Health Science Center faculty?" The answer materially changes the retirement package's value and is easy to miss in a standard offer letter.

Even though the FRS Pension Plan isn't available to you, understanding what you're missing — and what you're avoiding — puts your actual plan in context, the same way our UT System guide frames ORP against TRS.

The trade embedded in this comparison is familiar from every other university retirement guide on this site: the pension's higher nominal employer contribution and guaranteed lifetime benefit come wrapped in an 8-year vesting cliff that punishes exactly the physician most likely to move — early or mid-career academic faculty weighing offers across institutions, or those with realistic uncertainty about a decades-long single-university career. SUSORP's lower headline contribution rate is paired with immediate ownership and full portability.

The honest framing: since College of Medicine faculty don't get to choose, this comparison is informational rather than decision-driving. But it explains something worth knowing — SUSORP's structure isn't a downgrade forced on physicians out of neglect. It's the same design philosophy every other system in our Employer Deep Dives series applies to mobile clinical faculty: portability over guarantee, because physician careers don't reliably fit an 8-year vesting window.

SUSORP's mandatory contributions are only the base layer. Every Florida SUS institution also offers voluntary 403(b) and 457(b) plans — separate IRS contribution limits, no employer match, but real tax-advantaged space.

• 403(b) voluntary plan. For 2026, employee contributions up to $24,500 (plus $7,500 catch-up at 50+), completely separate from your mandatory SUSORP 3%. At UF, the voluntary 403(b) recordkeeping consolidated to Fidelity Investments in 2021, replacing the prior multi-provider structure (MetLife, TIAA, VALIC, Voya all transferred). Confirm your own institution's current voluntary 403(b) recordkeeper — it may differ from your mandatory SUSORP provider entirely.
• 457(b) Florida Deferred Compensation Plan. A second, separate $24,500 limit (2026), administered through the state's Bureau of Deferred Compensation with its own provider list (Nationwide, Voya, Corebridge). Because 457(b) limits are independent of 403(b) limits, a Florida academic physician maxing both can defer $49,000/year pre-tax on top of the mandatory SUSORP contributions — nearly identical to the double-deferral structure covered in our Physician 457(b) Plan guide.

Combined with SUSORP's mandatory 3% employee / ~5.14% employer split, a Florida academic physician who fully utilizes the voluntary stack is building a genuinely strong tax-advantaged position — even without a pension. This is the same principle from our UT System guide: when the mandatory plan's compensation cap or contribution rate falls short of what a high-earning physician needs, the voluntary stack is where the real retirement planning happens.

Florida's public universities — UF, USF, FSU, UCF, and FIU — are state government instrumentalities, which generally qualifies them as PSLF-eligible employers, the same status covered in our UC and UT System guides. A Florida academic physician carrying federal loans from training should certify employment annually from their SUSORP enrollment date forward — the retirement plan structure and the loan forgiveness track are independent decisions, but both deserve attention in the same onboarding period, and PSLF's tax-free forgiveness can meaningfully outweigh any retirement plan optimization for a physician carrying $200,000+ in federal debt.

• University of Florida (UF / UF Health). SUSORP mandatory for College of Medicine faculty; 90-day enrollment via ORP-MANDATORY form. Clinical faculty at the Health Science Center additionally participate in the AEF Health Center 403(b) Plan with Fidelity as recordkeeper — confirm this stacked benefit applies to your specific appointment. Voluntary 403(b) consolidated to Fidelity since 2021.
• University of South Florida (USF). SUSORP mandatory for College of Medicine faculty, structurally identical to UF's plan (same statewide contribution rates and provider list). Confirm directly with USF HR whether an equivalent stacked clinical-faculty plan exists; this guide found clear documentation of the UF version but not an equivalent public confirmation for USF.
• Florida State University (FSU). SUSORP mandatory for College of Medicine faculty; the FRS Pension Plan carries an 8-year vesting requirement for the general faculty population who do have the choice — useful context even though it doesn't apply to medical faculty directly. FSU documentation also references the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) for FRS Pension participants, not applicable to SUSORP.
• University of Central Florida (UCF) and Florida International University (FIU). Both maintain College of Medicine SUSORP mandates consistent with the statewide structure; FIU's plan documentation explicitly confirms immediate 100% vesting language nearly identical to UF's and FSU's.

The consistent thread across every institution: the plan mechanics (contribution rates, provider list, vesting, mandatory status for medical faculty) are set at the state level and apply uniformly. What varies by institution is the existence and structure of supplemental plans — like UF's Health Center 403(b) — which is exactly why this is the single most important question to ask directly during any Florida academic offer negotiation.