Contracted out pensions

[pensionquestion007]

Between 1995 and 2009 I worked for 3 different organisations consecutively and contracted out of state pension with all of them, and I then moved abroad and have been paying tax and contributions abroad. To now find out the status of the contracted out pension do I simply call the last employer? Will they have info for all the years, or do I need to speak to each employer? Is this likely to be an easy or difficult process after all this time? Each employer was quite large and well organised with a large accounts and HR department.

Does anyone have any clue what will happen with the contracted out pension from that time, or does it depend - ie when are they usually payable (at what age) and is there usually a pot or a monthly payment? Will it have continued building since 2009? I can't remember anything and cannot find any old paperwork (doh)

Thank you very much

You’re likely to need to call them all.

The rest of it depends on what kind of pensions they are.

If you don’t have any luck with your old employers, you could try the Pension Tracing Service - see this link

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

As above, if they're totally separate entities you'd need to contact each of them. Can be a PITA where repeated name changes etc are involved.

On the other hand, it's possible they were in the same scheme. Public sector schemes act together. My DP was able to move years accumulated as a research tech to the Teacher's scheme after doing a PGCE.

Also, watch out for interaction between contracted out schemes and the current State Pension.

It's easy to think that 35 years (which was what I did as a contracted out Civil Servant) means you've done what you need for the new, post 2016, State Pension's 34 years. As contracted out years seem not to count in full you can still add contributions to get the current £200+ weekly max.

My NI from a few years part time advice work is just enough to get me overthe line at 66

Thank you for the replies!