Pension - I have none and I’m a little unsettled by DHs response!

[EllyRoff]

So last night I got to thinking about pensions and realised I don’t have one! I’m no longer working (I make a small amount of money through art which DH has always been supportive with). I did have an NHS pension when I was working but DH convinced me to come out of it due to the high payments. There was barely anything in it anyway so I received the contributions back. Since then I’ve made very little contribution in national insurance etc.

DH has always said I’ll be fine in retirement as we have his good pension - but last night I thought “what if he died? Does the pension automatically come to me?” Turns out that no - it doesn’t. It goes to a named beneficiary.

So this morning I asked DH if I was named on his pension - he said “don’t worry, you’d get a state pension” !!! I said “what, £60 a week? I have none pension! Am I named on yours?” He said “why don’t you start a little savings account?”

So I’m not named on yours then?? He said “of course you are, I mean - I’ll check but I’m sure you are”. I’m very unnerved by his response - firstly his lack of concern!! Secondly his reluctance to confirm that I’m named on it. He says he’ll check today.

AIBU here? You’d think he’d want me to be ok in his death surely? Especially since it was him that convinced me to give up my own pension. He is 10 years older than me so not massively unreasonable to consider he might die before me.

Ah, so it may just be private pensions that are transferred not state?

I think you are being unreasonable. It seems as though you've done nothing yourself - your NHS pension; what happened there? For your self-employment, I presume you were paying NI? Did you take out a private pension? Don't blame this on anyone else but yourself for not taking some sort of control over your long-term future in advancing years.

Do you claim UC? As that pays your NI contributions, obviously it will depend on your husbands salary is, as to whether you qualify.

There's no transfer of state pension for anyone who reached retirement age after 2016. Before that there were some circumstances in which there could be a partial transfer, but usually only quite a small amount I think.

Consider not downsizing.

If your house is jointly owned as joint tenants, his share automatically passes to you if he dies. This is regardless of what his will says.

If you sell and free up funds, he can do what he wants with this money.

You have to pay in for 35 years to get a full state pension. How are doing with that? Set up a government gateway and find out !

There is no legal requirement for a married person to nominate their spouse as the beneficiary. The OP's husband can nominate a different person as the beneficiary of their pension.

However, the OP can challenge the will if they believe they haven't received reasonable financial provision. This means the court can intervene to ensure the spouse is adequately provided for, even if the will explicitly excludes them.

Every couple's dynamics are different and a lot of women of an older generation did leave all the financial matters to the dh. I have also been rather lax in this regard and looking back I think I must have been mad but at the time I absolutely trusted my now exdh. This has left me in a very difficult position and though I have accrued enough NI credits for a full pension (I am 60 very soon) that's basically all I'll have.

I wonder if OP is coming back?

Well having been told several hundred times that she's been stupid (including by me, I admit) it wouldn't be surprising if she just can't face reading that any more.

But hopefully she's taken in that she needs to be proactive, and that's what matters.

It depends on the individual pension.

I hope she has too

It absolutely boggles my mind when someone doesn't know what their pension looks like.

You don't know whether it's invested in a decent fund or what the projections are, and have zero idea what retirement might look like. It feels like living under a rock to me.

Are you in the uk? Pension credits from child benefit are until the youngest child is 12 yrs old

She only put 3 messages on and there's 17 pages of everyone telling her she's x, y, z. There is some good information posted but the poor woman won't open up or come back to this barrage. Back off and show some empathy fgs.

I’d start by checking your NI contributions, you don’t automatically get a state pension, and then get some financial planning sorted out with an advisor.

I often read on here that the world would be a better place if women were in charge.

Maybe.

But i would worry that women would be much more horrible to each other than men are horrible to each other.

You definitely need to check out how much pension you will receive. There are ways of paying more if you've missed contributions. I 🤔 Money Saving Expert has a lot of information about this. I'm not sure what you situation will be regarding a pension if your husband dies before you - you'd only get widows pension for a year or so. Of course if you divorce you can ask for a big chunk of his private pension!

@Timetochillnow Aha I'm a dinosaur and hopelessly out of date, so thanks for heads up! Yes, I'm in the UK, but clearly things have changed. Everyone used to get child benefit automatically until youngest child turned 16. After that time it carried on until age 19 provided child was still in full time education, but NI credits ceased when youngest child turned 16. While my elder child was in sixth form the rules changed and many lost all CB, some kept some of it and some were able to keep it all. We lost it all, although some parents on higher incomes than us only lost a proportion. That's because means testing was on higher income of 2 parents, not joint income, so parents splitting income between them fared better. Those of us getting CB reduced or taken away could choose between simply stopping it or taking it and then paying it back through tax return. While our elder son was 16 to 19 yrs we took it and repaid it, to safeguard my NI credits because we still had a child under 16. We opted to stop it when younger child reached 16 because there would be no more credits. We were very lucky, missing out on only 1 yr of benefit for ds1 and 3 yrs for ds2, while still getting full NI credits. Looks as if things are tough now. Age 12 is very early to stop credits.

@Onceisenoughta Relieved to see someone on MN has some human decency.

@Oodlesof Never a truer word written.

We all have anxiety life is hard but unfortunately some of us have to work, you are expecting your husband to rescue you, it sounds like hubby is just rescueing himself and i dont blame him, and as already suggested if he leaves you you will have no pension,

Sorry @EllyRoff I don’t have time to rtf but you can claim child benefit under your name if you have dependent children. Even if your dh earns >limit for payments and you receive the benefits and he has to pay it back in tax but by claiming it means you earn NI towards your pension. You can go on gov website and check your contributions and see how much more/longer you need to contribute to gain full state pension. Then you need to start making some investments for your retirement. You don’t state your age so that would influence your choices. Speak to an advisor. The investments can of course be in both your names but it means you will have additional funds. As someone else said it’s likely that you receive a much lesser amount from your husbands pension if he dies.

I'll admit that I pretty much relied on having my teaching pension. What I didn't account for was that I'd finish up leaving work two years earlier than expected - a combination of DH's health and a headteacher who kept adding to my workload.

I did seek advice from my union, but the advice from the financial adviser was - I now realise - inadequate and when I went to the union for advice about my HT's behaviour, I was just advised that I could go off sick on full pay for 3 months (I think?) and an half pay for the same again. I was too proud to do that - more fool me: it would have given me my pay for a bit longer and would have boosted my pension.

The HT was eventually hauled up for bullying staff, but was suspended on full pay for the duration and left with his full pension entitlement.

I'm not impoverished, but I don't have the 'comfortable' pension that I'd expected. (I was in middle management in Scotland.)

I did find out about the Carer's Entitlement - not Allowance - after I quit and that covered my NI contributions for a couple of years.

DH had taken out a Prudential AVC to boost his pension, but when he died Prudential told me that his additional pension (minute though it was) died with him. I don't think that Dh realised that - he took it out when we got married.

He was a late entrant to teaching and his pension for that was about 8k - plus he had his state pension. (He'd previously been an estate worker.)

What I'm saying is that I should have been a bit more proactive about sorting out my pension. I was a bit stupid - I thought that my teaching pension took care of things for me. It never dawned on me that I'd have to retire early.

Find a GOOD financial advisor and think about setting money aside for your own pension, now. I don't know how old you are but you are in a very vulnerable position, right now. I did the same, and my DH left before we were old enough to take the pension. His new wife is his beneficiary, and I'm desperately trying to put as much aside as I can over the next couple of years. My DH convinced me this HIS pension scheme had a better return on it than mine did, so, like a fool I believed him. I paid for the food, clothes, petrol etc while he invested OUR money into HIS pension pot.
Get some independent advice to protect yourself