What risk means for your super

No investment can ever be guaranteed to perform well. The nature of investing means there’s always the potential for your investment to lose value from year to year.

Over the long term, you can think of risk as the chance that the return on your investments might not be enough to provide you with the income you’ll need in retirement.

The appropriate level of risk for you may depend on your age, how long you’re investing for, what other assets you have outside super and how they are invested, and how comfortable you are with the possibility of losing some of your investment in some years.

Consider how long you’ll need to invest

When choosing your investment option, the amount of time you want to invest for may impact how much risk you’re willing to take. You don’t need to choose the best performing investment option. It’s more important that you choose the one that best suits your investment goals and how comfortable you are with risk.

For help choosing an investment option, use our Investment choice tool.

Risk and return are closely related

Generally speaking, the higher the potential return from an asset over time, the higher the potential risk.

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) and the Financial Services Council have created the Standard Risk Measure to help members compare the risk of various investment options.

An example - Diversified options for GESB Super

Shown below are the Diversified and Asset Class options for GESB Super, and where they sit on the risk scale compared to each other. The options are positioned on the chart based on their risk level.

You can see that the Diversified Growth option is lower risk than the Asset Class Australian Shares option. That’s because the Growth option includes a more diversified range of assets which bring the risk down. The combination of high risk and low risk assets set the risk level for each Diversified option.

Growth
My GESB Super
Sustainable Balanced
Balanced
Conservative
Australian Shares
International Shares
Property
Fixed Interest
Cash
Very high risk
High risk
Medium to high risk
Medium risk
Low to medium risk
Low risk
Very low risk

For more information on investment risk, please refer to the GESB Super product information booklet or Investment choice brochure.

Page last updated 11 March 2026

Thank you for printing this page. Remember to come back to gesb.wa.gov.au for the latest information as our content is updated regularly. This information is correct as at 16 June 2026.