Pension re-starting

[SadBut]

I was in the NHS pension from 95 to around 2008
Following financial abuse (after pregnancy) I stopped paying in
Now finally out of the relationship at 50
Is it worth re-starting pension?
Am I too late?

I would start contributing as much as possible. You have the best ‘income for life’ nhs pension scheme and so shoukd try to maximise your benefit.

Start it again. It is a good pension and you still have a number of working years ahead of you to build up your pension again. You will thank yourself on retirement.

100% I would rejoin. You potentially have another 15 years 🤪 of work to go yet and I would imagine that would build a somewhat healthy pension pot. Especially when added to the 13 years you already have.

It's a defined benefit pension, so you cod easily double the number of years you buy for your final pension. If you are able to add more then even better.

Yes yes yes.
I retired but went back to work 2 days a week, and because of new legislation can start a new pension.
I'm paying into that and I'm 58. It's a no brainer. Employee contributes a large percentage too so look at it like it's like savings.

Nothing will come near it for a return on the amount you pay in.

As well as the pension at retirement it also provides and element of cover for life/survivors and long term ill health.

As per PP; no brainer.

The general advice above is good - restart your pension now!

But a lot of the specifics (employer contributins, doubled years) are from people who don't know the details of the current NHS pension.

So yes. Rejoin the pension. But read up on what youre getting and how to make the most of it. If you're on Facebook join the NHS Pension group on there.

Your old pension will be in the 1995 section. You can't add to that - the number of years in it now won't change, nor will the final salarybused to calculate it. It has a retirement age of 60. When you retire you will get 1/60th of the best year's salary of your final 3 years before you left that pension times the number of years you were in it. If you worked part time for any of that, it will be calculated on full time equivalent salary but the number of years will be reduced. You will be paid that amount (increased by inflation) every year for life. You will also get a lump sum when you first take the pension. If you dont take it at 60, ot doesn't increase and you may not be able to claim back the years you missed.

You may read things about special class status or the McCloid judgement (especially if you join the Facebook group). Neither of these will apply to you so you can ignore them.

When you rejoin the pension now you will join the 2015 section. This is a defined benefit pension, but not a final salary one. Every year your pension entitlement is increased by 1/54th of your earnings for that year. When tpubretire all those 54ths will be added together to determine your annual pension. Again it is paid every year for life, and increases with inflation. There is no default lump sum (if you want one you can give up some of the annual pension in exchange for a lump sum). Retirement age is the same as state pension age. If you don't take it at that age it is increased and you get a large amount when you do claim it.

If you want a larger pension, firstly check your state pension entitlement on Government Gateway and make sure you are on track to get full state pension.

You can then look at ways to increase your NHS pension.

1. Additional pension. This buys a set extra amount (up to £6500 a year) on top of the 2015 pension. You can pay for it in a lump sum or in installments over a few years. It will be paid as part of the 2015 pension and can only be taken at the same time.

2. AVCs - this buys a private, defined contribution pension alongside the NHS one, but as a separate 'pot'. The terms and conditions are different. It will probably be worth less money than putting the same amount I to the NHS one, but is more flexible because you can take it at a different time.

3. ERRBO - this does not give you a bigger pension, but allows you to take the 2015 one at 65 or 66 without the usual penltay for taking it early. If you want to take ad antagebof this option you need to staty making ERRBO payments as soon as possible after starting thr oe sion because it only applies to pension accrued while making them; the portion of pension accrued beforehand will be reduced for taking it early.

Drayt - pressed post instead of preview. Let's try that again after a typo check ...

The general advice above is good - restart your pension now!

But a lot of the specifics (employer contributions, doubled years) are from people who maybe don't know the details of the current NHS pension.

So yes. Rejoin the pension. But read up on what you're getting and how to make the most of it. If you're on Facebook join the NHS Pension group on there.

Your old pension will be in the 1995 section. You can't add to that - the number of years in it now won't change, nor will the final salary used to calculate it. It has a retirement age of 60. When you retire you will get (1/60th of the best year's salary of your final 3 years before you left that pension) times (the number of years you were in it). If you worked part time for any of that, it will be calculated on full time equivalent salary but the number of years will be reduced. You will be paid that amount (increased by inflation) every year for life. You will also get a lump sum when you first take the pension. If you don't take it at 60, it doesn't increase and you may not be able to claim back the years you missed.

You may read things about special class status or the McCloud judgement (especially if you join the Facebook group). Neither of these will apply to you so you can ignore them.

When you rejoin the pension now you will join the 2015 section. This is a defined benefit pension, but not a final salary one. Every year your pension entitlement is increased by 1/54th of your earnings for that year. When you retire all those 54ths will be added together to determine your annual pension. Again it is paid every year for life, and increases with inflation. There is no default lump sum (if you want one you can give up some of the annual pension in exchange for a lump sum). Retirement age is the same as state pension age. If you don't take it at that age it is increased and you get a larger yearly amount when you do claim it.

If you want a larger pension, firstly check your state pension entitlement on Government Gateway and make sure you are on track to get full state pension.

You can then look at ways to increase your NHS pension.

1. Additional pension. This buys a set extra amount (up to £6,500 a year) on top of the 2015 pension. You can pay for it in a lump sum or in installments over a few years. It will be paid as part of the 2015 pension and can only be taken at the same time.

2. AVCs - this buys a private, defined-contribution pension alongside the NHS one, but as a separate 'pot'. The terms and conditions are different. It will probably be worth less money than putting the same amount into the NHS one, but is more flexible because you can take it at a different time.

3. ERRBO - this does not give you a bigger pension, but allows you to take the 2015 one at 65 or 66 without the usual ppenalty or taking it early. If you want to take advantage of this option you need to start making ERRBO payments as soon as possible after starting the pension because it only applies to pension accrued while making them; the portion of pension accrued beforehand will be reduced for taking it early.

Thanks for all the information
Really wish I'd posted 18 years ago!
Also genuinely feels it wouldn't have been too much trouble for someone to have given me some information at that time, rather than just closing my pension