Urgent warning to anyone those age 45 + re: National Insurance & state pension

[lechatnoir]

Apologies if this has already been posted but the deadline to plug any NI contribution gaps is closing on 5th April and gaps in contributions could have a significant impact on your state pension so well worth looking at.
It may require you to pay for top-up (apparently not always but not applicable to me) but I was shocked to find I had gaps of a few years even though was employed & paying tax & NI!

Details & instructions on here: www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

It’s worth logging in and checking.

I’ve got 41 years but only 34 of those count as I was contracted out for 7. I am self employed for a few hours a week nowadays and in theory need to pay another year. I’m almost 63 and have 4 more years before my pension but paying another year (£160 ish) makes up my projected pension amount by only 55p a week, so it would be 5.5 years after retirement just to break even, and I would be 73. My health is not good so I’d rather keep the £160

As long as I work up to 2042 I will have full contributions. Gaps from studying don't need to be plugged, as far as I can tell, and mine were 1994-1998 so too late now.

Thanks @RahRahOhLaLa my husband read the Gov calculator more carefully and it would appear my max contribution years are 32, so I'm two years off. I have no idea why it is saying 35 for some people though.

I'm glad I looked into this as the two years' gaps I have been invited to pay will make no difference at all to my overall pension so not necesssary. Thanks to the OP for raising this!

I've got another 14 years till retirement and need another 12 years of contributions. There's one of my incomplete years that only needs £200 to be complete, so I'm going to do that just to give myself a bit more leeway between now and retirement age.

I started in 1985.

I knew as HMRC wrote to me at the time but I couldn't afford it as a student, and didn't know I had years to pay after when I was working as it wasn't online then. It was hundreds of pounds and I was living on about £3-4k a year.

Meant to say I need 35 years in total.

Actually the HMRC site is misleading, I only need 4 more qualifying years to get the full 30. I'll likely have 46 years by 2042!

I have only worked for 20 years but it says 23 year paid. Its not possible to get extra 3 years added? Or maybe I paid too much?
Do I need to call them and ask or does anyone know if it’s common.

I can't find where it says how many I need. Only how many I have. My first year of contribtions was 86/87. Anyone know where it sais how many years you need? Maybe I need to phone them.

If you're on your personal account page, at the bottom under Pension it has a tab for pension forecast.

I think here www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

I'm confused. I'm 52 and it says I've made 27 years of full contributions (I've made most of another year too) and need to made 4 more years of full contributions to get the full amount. That doesn't add up to 35 though.

A while back I asked financial advisor if worth topping up 'missing' years. She said wait till nearer pension age as you may not live that long :). Rules may have changed since that advice though ...

Its' 30 years.

www.gov.uk/state-pension/eligibility#:~:text=Your%20National%20Insurance%20record,working%20and%20paying%20National%20Insurance

Could the other years have come from when you had qualifying caring responsibilities for example claiming child benefit for children?

That is for people born before:

"6 April 1951 if you’re a man
6 April 1953 if you’re a woman"

Those born after then will claim the new state pension which is higher but is paid later and needs 35 years for the full amount www.gov.uk/new-state-pension

That link is to the basic State Pension for men born up to 1951 and women up to1953.

The new State Pension appiles after that.

The new State Pension

Checked my contributions , id have to top up a few thousand which i havent got so not sure where that leaves me...

For the new SP you need at least 10 years to get anything, then it's a sliding scale up to 35 years when you get the full amount.

There is also the Additional State Pension which applies to the pre 51/53 cohort.

It is confusing. It is different numbers of years for people of different ages.
This is you need to check for yourself, your own record.
the government designed this, so of course it is confusing 😂

It’s definitely 35 years for those in new state pension (at the moment anyway).

I wonder if the confusion for some is that when you log in it tells you how many years you have left in which you can pay. It means how many potential work years you have before your retirement age when you could pay in, not how many years you NEED to pay in.

For example I’ve got 23 years banked, 12 to go to reach the 35 years required, but have 24 years until retirement (assuming it doesn’t move up from 67…)

It really is 35 years to get the maximum new state pension, it doesn’t matter how old you are (as long as you were born after those 1951/53 dates)

This bit I think they explain well

This is what mine says. It definitely says I've made 27 full years of contributions on the other page. I'd better phone and check as it might be an error

This bit looks like I NEED to contribute for 25 more years. But they mean those are the years in which I COULD contribute.