To not know about national insurance credits even if not eligible for child benefit???

[mollycoddle77]

On another thread about state pension and national insurance contributions, I have just learned that as I have been unemployed for two years and have two young children (both now 6yo), I should have registered for child benefit, even knowing that I would be ineligible due to DH earnings, and I would have got national insurance credits equivalent to contributions towards state pension!!! How was I supposed to know this 😫😫😫?? Have I lost out on two years of free NI contributions? 😭 If so this word should be spread to all sahms out there!! Sorry for the prolific exclamation marks, but I am gutted...

I thought it was widely known, clearly I am wrong!

No-one told me. I had researched cb and found out dh earned too much to bother claiming. Luckily I found out in time on here that I could make a nil claim and get the ni credits.

OP, you could always just pay them.

Yes, never wanted to claim JSA so that's not relevant.

I guess if it's in the CB application form I should have seen it when I claimed 6 years ago. I don't know, I had twins, couldn't see straight for a long time!!

Sorry you said you were unemployed so I presumed you'd be looking for work. I thought most people knew about class 2 contributions.

You can claim back missed nat Ins contributions up to 6 years later

I agree with the poster who said women lose out again - this really is not widely known and many, many women are losing out (see also the money saving expert link someone provided)

It's in forms when you first apply. And I read it several times when looking at the new rules.

Can I ask though, were you that bothered you were missing years of pension payments before finding this out?

But if you claimed 6 years ago are you certain you are not still registered but opted out of payments.

@Ilikethisone I was bothered, yes, but not enough to stay in a job that made me miserable. I will return to work and plan to make extra contributions in the future when I have an income to cover the gaps. But I would have much preferred to have them free if I just needed to fill in a form. Yeah it's stupid, but I don't think it's that obvious and there should definitely be more awareness about it. This is why Mumsnet is great!

@LIZS I'm definitely going to ask about that, but am not optimistic... thanks again

I phoned up last week spoke to both child benefits agency and tax and pensions office they all told me the same, this is rubbish, you still get the contributions even if you aren't taking cb payment as your partner earns too much. I quoted newspapers articles the works they just wouldn't have it and said it isn't true!

@HiJenny35 wait, so what needs to happen to get the NI credits? I haven't spoken to them yet. Do you not need to set this up with the child benefit people? Because not everyone who is unemployed gets those credits. Does it not have to do with having children?
Thanks for posting by the way, really appreciate it!

You can check your NI record on the gov.uk website. You will need to register. There are many ways to get NI credits, being employed or self employed, being a parent of DC under 12, a carer, or receiving certain state benefits.

You need 35 years of NI credits to get a full state pension and given that most people have over 50 years being working age to gain these credits, all is not lost, many people will pay or be credited for far more than 35 years anyway, and you don't get more pension for paying more than 35 years.

But I don't understand how you didn't know about CB. Did you not grow up in the UK? It really is common knowledge, it's like not knowing about the existence of the Queen or Police Stations.

You can get CB related credits without taking the money, but you have to be registered as a parent of a DC under 12, it doesn't happen automatically.

If you're married and were unemployed you could also look into the marriage tax allowance where your unused tax-free allowance (on earnings up to 11k) can be transferred to your husband. I applues yesterday which took about 10 minutes and we should be eligible for about £250 tax rebate per year I haven't worked.

You can also look on the government website to see how many years of NI contributions you have and how much you would have to pay to "top up" any year to a full contribution

All I can assume is that because I originally had child benefit and then stopped due to oh income that it kept my details as I checked and I have no years missing.
One of the people also said if any were missing you can back date for 2 years but they all seemed so sketchy about it all. They said they hadn't heard of any women missing out because they had stopped due to oh income so I can't say however reliable the information is.

As far as I can work out yes if your child is 12 or under you will get you national insurance contributions paid in for you if you are not working. These can be backdated 2 years (or so 1 person told me I don't know how true this is) I phoned both the child benefits agency and the tax office so I'm not sure which would put it in place. You'd need to send of evidence (birth certificates) but yes get registered as soon as possible before you miss out.