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/

I am inspired to try again. I tried a couple of months ago and gave up after half an hour. I found an address to post a cheque to, which I did. Two months later and it still hasn't been cashed. I have been on hold for half an hour so far. Fingers crossed.

Persevere with the helpline. When you eventually get through to a person they will confirm amounts and can give you a bank account number and sort code to transfer the money. You also get a unique 18 digit number to to track the payment. It can take up to 8 weeks for the payment to show up online.

It's confusing that everyone is being given different lengths of time for NI payments.

I'm 55 and mine says I need 33 years of NI contributions to receive the full pension. I will achieve that next year.

As some previous posters have said the National Insurance helpline at HMRC is incredibly busy - I waited on line for an hour yesterday afternoon to try to speak to someone in order to get the 18 digit reference number (to enable me to make a voluntary class 3 payment) only for the line to be disconnected .... however I tried ringing again at 8am this morning and got through to a very helpful person in under 5 minutes so it definitely pays to ring them early in the day.

Yes, of course. Why wouldn't you unless you had a good occupational pension which allowed you to retire earlier.

What I want to know is

Can we still "buy" extra years of NI to get an increased pension?

I have no gaps, but only 28 years of contributions. I lived & worked in another country for some of my teenaged years, and my first 15 years of working. There is no equivalent to state pension there, and my training & profession means that I wasn't eligible to contribute to an occupational pension until I was over 30.

So I'll probably need to work till I'm 70. I read somewhere a long time ago that you can buy extra pension years. But there's nothing on the gov.uk site.

@Meceme thank you. I called and was on hold for 1H 15mins before they cut me off 😠. I'll try again the next time I have nothing better to do!

Yay. 1 hrs 10 mins later, I have my 18 digit no and bank details.

Thanks for spurring me on to try again.

Does anyone know if it’s paid for you during any time claiming unemployment benefit? I have two years I didn’t work but was on unemployment benefit (many years ago)

OMG, so lucky. I have been trying for weeks and then saw Martin Lewis was promoting it and thought well that's the end of that then. I will try again.

I checked today and was also puzzled by the fact it says I have 22 years of contributions, but only need another 9 to get full state pension, which adds up to 31 years.

I’m got DH to check tonight and as expected there is a year gap because of childcare. Child benefit is in his name. How do you go about claiming it for that year? Google says it should be automatically applied, but that’s obviously not happened here.

Thanks so much OP. Had it in my mind to look after the Martin Lewis programme (and I recall getting a letter years ago to say I was forecast to being short)...anyway, relieved to see I am on track for the full pension. Appreciate this post.

For anyone following OP's link, the quickest things to have to hand are driving license and Passport. Takes less than 10 mins.

Thank you - sorry for misleading anyone.

We're all learning together. 😊

I’m also having big trouble trying to get through on the phone. It makes you sit and listen to all their waffle and then just drops the call. I did try the HMRC line as well and that was even worse! It’s bloody ridiculous.

I'm 51 and just seen I have full 35 years contributions. Started with pt Saturday job at 16 and no gaps.
I can get most of my NHS pension at 55 and then I'm out.

Anyone in the new state pension needing to contribute more than 35 years to receive the full amount will have been contracted out of serps at some point. The extra years are to make up for the reduced contributions while contracted out.

I’m in a similar situation - I worked abroad for a few years so didn’t pay NI.

You can buy extra years, but only specific recent years where you have gaps in your NI record. You can’t buy back years from before 2006.

Thanks so much OP. I didn’t know this until
i just checked now but you can claim for free NI class 1 (🤷‍♀️) credits if you were on a govt approved training course not more than one year so like a PGCE. Here is the screen grab I took of that ….

Also this link www.gov.uk/national-insurance-credits/eligibility explains how you get years for maternity leave and child benefit amounts other things.

National Insurance

Sorry- link is this one ☝️

I'm a little hesitant to top up missed years as I suspect at some point the state pension will become means tested, whether against private pension or assets. I don't want to put extra money in and the government shifts the goal posts (again).

Would be interested if others feel this way too, or if I'm being overly paranoid!

Like many, I've got numbers that don't really seem to add up. Mine states 23 years, need 11 more. Then lists out 23 years back to the first year I was in the UK, including the current tax year (so "no information yet"), two of which are gaps (as I expected). So actually that seems to mean 21 years including the current year. Whether I can trust that I only need 11 more, or actually 13, I've no idea. I don't know if you get credited for 16-18 on the basis that you were in education, if you weren't in the country and didn't yet have an NI number.
[my sister's got a saga on that topic - when she first applied to get an NI number they refused at her interview, saying she was lying that she didn't have one already, she must do as all UK citizens get them automatically. No, UK citizens not born in the UK don't ... Come to think of it, that will have knocked a few years off her contribution records I think]

I think that there was a point at which the years required for a full state pension was decreased to 30. And then when the system changed there must have been transitional arrangements that explain why so many of us seem to need something between 30 and 35 years.

I also don't understand the contracting out numbers. My forecast says I will get the full amount, but also acknowledges that I was contracted out for a time and gives an equivalent amount from that. I don't know if my final amount would be decreased by that? Clear as mud ...

I have no doubt at all that the govt will interfere with state pensions at some point. I’m almost discounting it in my financial planning! Mind you they were talking about messing around with ISAs as well, so maybe nothing is safe!

Gosh that was a painful experience trying to set up my .Gov account and confirming my identity but I got there in the end!!!

I was curious to see if I'd have missing contributions from the years I was backpacking, but I earned enough, surprisingly. My only missing years were from when I was a full time student straight out of school.
It kindly reminded me I've got 19 more years to work before I get the state pension