Pension help please

[Nimblethimble]

As far as I am aware, I have been signed up to a pension in every job I have had, starting from my student days 30 years ago.

One full time job I was at for about 5 years in the 90s are saying they cannot find me on their pension system, via my name, NI number or date of birth.

I have moved many times since then and do not have payslips.

HMRC sent me their records confirming I paid NI during that period but this company still don't have any records of my pension. I know it is the right place because I worked there with a friend and she has her pension with them.

Does this realistically mean I did not have a pension with them, or is there another way of finding out?

Thanks for any suggestions.

https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

NI is not your pension contributions. Do your old pay slips show you paying pension contributions? If not, you didn’t.

My friend and colleague from that job gave me the details so they are correct.

No payslips, nothing online then and this was over 30 years - and many house moves - ago.

Having worked running occupational pension schemes for many years, I have seen this situation a few times before.

If the scheme's records don't have you listed as a member, it will be up to you to prove that you were.

You are going to have to come up with some sort of paperwork to show that pension contributions were deducted from your pay or, failing that, some documentation you were given by your employer regarding the scheme.

Without either of these (and preferably both) I think you will have a hard time proving your case.

There are a number of Pension Ombudsman's cases on this very subject. Simply being employed and paying NI contributions is not enough.

Thank you @SamAylward xx

I didn’t think workplace pensions were compulsory back then so perhaps you were subscribed

Who is it that is the actual pension provider ? Can you find out from your friend and then contact them directly ?

Did you keep your P60s? Back in the day they were paper, but probably all online now.

When I first started work the law was that you didn’t get a pension contribution until you had worked for two years and then after that you had to actively opt in and so it may be that you were not actually a member.

Workplace pensions weren’t compulsory back then. People just paid national insurance towards their state pension.
You could have taken out a private pension but you would had to have arranged it yourself, pay into it yourself and claim the tax back and it sounds like you didn’t do this.

Stakeholder pensions came in in 1999 but the two year qualifying period for some workplace pensions was not actually removed until 2010. I suspect you were not a member of the schemes.

Paying NI contributions is for your state pension. Are you thinking about Stakeholder pensions, which were launched in 2001? I had a few of those as I changed jobs every couple of years. I had paperwork and account numbers for them all. I never paid anything into any of them as I had a private pension scheme but my employers did. None of the schemes were worth much so I rolled them into my private pension scheme several years ago.

So even if you do have a Stakeholder pension it’s unlikely to be worth much as employers only paid minimum payments. It was recognised pretty quickly that people weren’t paying into Stakeholder pensions, which is why auto-enrolment into work pension schemes were introduced.

Maybe a starting point is to find out the name of the Stakeholder pension from your friend who worked at the same place? It doesn’t sound like you made payments into a scheme but there could be a small amount that your employer paid into a scheme on your behalf.

ETA: just realised you’re talking about a job in the 90s, which is before Stakeholder pensions were introduced, so unless you signed up and made payments, it’s unlikely you have a pension from the time you worked at that job.

No, all my post graduation jobs have had opt-in DC pensions, starting in 1985. I became eligible for each after induction - one month or three months in to the job - and then I had to sign up to the company schemes. I didn't have to set up the scheme or claim tax back, that was handled centrally. Separate deductions on my payslips The pension companies have each sent me an annual statement ever since.

If you haven't received any statements OP, it sounds like you have never joined. You would have received a pensions joining pack with each including plan number, investment options etc. at the time.

Another thought. Do you have a written job offer for any of the work? I had to use these to establish employment history and so being part of teachers' superannuation when Crapita took over payrolls in a lot of LAs. They didn't keep records after five years. Wankers.

Place mark

You were very lucky then. Most private companies retained the two year qualifying period. I worked for a big four accountancy/consultancy company and even they had the service requirement.

This was mid 90's so maybe I didn't if I had to proactively take steps to join.

I don't remember any conversation about it at all so assumed I'd have been signed up automatically, shame if not.

Will keep searching, I bought a property around that time so will dig out the paperwork from the loft and see if I have an old payslip or something.

You won’t have been signed up automatically I’m afraid unless it was public sector (in which case there’s a chance)

What sort of company are we talking about?
National? Or a smaller, local firm? IME most of the latter didn't offer pension schemes until they were obligated to.

I have found a lost pension scheme I was a member of before.

I don't know that much about pensions, but the way I found it was to contact the scheme direct. I suspect contacting the employer would have got me nowhere.

Your old company may well have outsourced management of the scheme to a provider, and as I suggested upthread, you might want to try to find out who they are and contact them directly. Normally the NI number will be enough for them to find you as that is unique to the individual - they might ask for some other security details as well such as DOB.

I never got any letters from them re the scheme I was in beforehand, because they didn't know where I lived.

But as others have said on here, just because there was a scheme doesn't mean you were in it. A lot of schemes around that time weren't compulseary to be in, you had to opt in, and some may have had minimum working time requirements before you were allowed to become a member, or other rules that didn't qualify you.

30 years ago I started working for a life and savings business. They obviously wanted us to sign up for a pension the very first day (I’m now glad they did I didn’t see it at the time)

we had to have a separate session to n the day about pensions and sign load of forms about it and the deductions. I also had yearly statements so for the job you had for 5 years you would have had many statements

I’m sorry OP I don’t think you’ve been paying into a pension for 30 years. Do keep looking though if there is any auto enrolment the last few years

I've contacted the pension scheme and the current company (which was a small regional branch / part of a national group).

Both have looked under NI and DOB and cannot find me.

Have signed up to Gretel as well. I think it's increasingly likely I didn't sign up as I'm guessing I'd have found it otherwise (very shortsighted of me).