I threw away a final salary pension and feel sick.

[CommanderTaggart]

I was a teacher for 5 years at the start of my career and I had a final salary pension. I then moved to a local government role. I left my teachers pension in its pot, as all I really knew about pensions at the time was that a final salary teachers pension is an amazing thing that I was lucky to have and should hang onto. So I did.
Anyway I am now older, earning a lot more and researching and learning about pensions. I realise to my dismay that if I had transferred my teacher’s pension into my LGPS pot within 12 months of leaving teaching I could have retained the final salary link for those 5 years. Safe to say my final salary is going to be very considerably more than the 30k ish I was on when I left teaching.
I am absolutely kicking myself. I had no idea. It was a huge financial blunder that will cost me dearly in retirement and I just feel that I was in no way prepared for or helped to make this decision. “Seek financial advice” is all people ever say, but realistically when you are young and have no investments and very little in the way of spare cash, seeing a financial advisor is not something that you do.
I’m not sure why I’m posting here really, I just had to vent my huge disappointment and frustration and am seeking commiseration I suppose.

I’m in LGPS. When did you move to LGPS - it was final salary until 1 April 2014.

What? It literally makes no difference here. Also, her salary from what she says is under 60,000. It's not a drastic increase. She says if she got a promotion or two, she'd be on 60-65k but has used the 90-100 figure to account for inflation over the next 20 years until retirement. And I'm not sure what you mean about predicting the future - if she sought financial advice about transferring her pension, she'd have known her new salary, wouldn't she?

Did you not read the scheme guide? They are normally written reasonably well and would give you a starting point. Google can also be your friend. Pengage has a facebook page for public sector pension schemes. A lot of the discussions are about NHS pensions, but it’s worth having a look. They also offer a paid for service which again may be worth exploring.

You haven’t really lost anything though? You’ll surely get a small pension based on your 5 years in the teaching position, and then a larger pension based on your x years with your new organisation? I worked for a university for six years in my 20s, I will get a small final salary payout from them when the time comes, accounting for inflation I reckon about 1.5k a year. Just make sure you keep your contact details up to date with the teaching pension provider!

I can understand your frustration. You weren't at fault, there is simply very little financial information available to people - it is almost as if there is a deliberate secretiveness in order for people to not claim their entitlements.

Look how many welfare benefits go unclaimed simply because people often in desperate need don't know about them.

You wouldn't have necessarily thought about getting financial advice as there wasn't anything obvious at the time to get advice on.

I would just say to anyone who has, or even thinks they may have, a pension with their employer, to take some time, find the details and read all the small print.

I became disabled and no longer able to work in my 30's, and nobody told me I could claim my NHS pension early on ill health grounds.

I happened to get chatting to a random lady on a f*ing TRAIN whilst travelling to a hospital appointment who told me she was medically retired from the NHS.

I did apply for and get tier 2 medical retirement, but if not for that lady I would have struggled on means tested benefits for the rest of my life.

Chatgpt is really, really stupid. I asked it how many cushion covers I could get out of a specific length of fabric and it told me twice as many as was actually possible. It's not the only example I've got of it being wrong

Yes you should have sought financial advice. But would you have found any good advice?

Most likely any IFA wouldn't have been interested in talking to you (not worth their time as low value) or would have tried to persuade you to transfer a gold plated DB scheme into some sort of private pension which may be worth less than your DB will pay out. So it could have been much worse!!

I sympathise. Pensions can be stupidly complicated, and you really have to be on the ball, making sure you check old ones regularly, and the rules about transferring in every time you change jobs.
I was lucky enough to leave a job with a SIPP at a market peak, and get it transferred into the LGPS, which allowed me to buy 6 years of inflation proof pension at a reasonable salary level. Have just moved jobs again, into another defined benefit scheme which sadly doesn't allow any transferring in.

Most workplace pension schemes come with some sort of advice for free, which is really worth taking to make sure you've picked up on everything you can.

I hear you

Teachers / govt pensions are way higher than most working people coukd dream of

But... at least you get an employer contribution at all. I'm self employed and have sole responsibility for my own pension arrangements

For goodness sake OP get a grip - what a dramatic title to your OP! It makes it sound like you actually threw away a good pension and will now be struggling in retirement, but instead you have a very generous pension and will have a lovely, extremely comfortable pension that many people can only dream off.

FFS, pull yourself together - feel sick,my arse. The drama of it!

I doubt it’s anything like that. Everyone goes on about the NHS pension. I have been in NHS for over 20 years so will be doing ok.

It’s great if you spend decades there

But the way it works is that you get say £500 - £1000 in pension per year worked, and that’s on today’s money. Not exactly but for sake of argument.

So you won’t have lost vast sums

The right answer.

OP can I ask what you understand by final salary pension?
You would have to be earning an awful lot of money to get a final salary pension of 90K!!!!

Op - you've got the wrong end of the stick here. Ring the LGPS people, they are really helpful and will explain. You have definitely not lost £10k per year pension!

I am not a pensions expert, but I am very sure that 5 years of pension cannot add up to £10k a year. If you are retired for 30 years, that would be £300,000 which I am sure is a lot more than you earned altogether in that 5 years of teaching.

You don’t seem to appreciate how inflation has eroded salary values and while you have missed out on the FS link going forward you still have benefitted from inflationary increases. Say you have 4-6k in your final salary to take at 60/65/67 accordingly there is no way you would have made an extra 4-6k a year. No chance. If that were true teacher’s pensions would be beyond great and actually shutting gold. Maybe chat gtp calculated the value of the increase over your expected lifespan or was just shit?

There are decisions you can make now that will make a real difference - do Rebel Finance and plan with purpose and less hysteria.

But you haven’t thrown it away. Log into Teacher Pensions Services and it will have a record and a projection of what you’ve earned, although 5 years of paying in will be very little. I’m 30 years in and due an annual pension under £25K, plus a lump sum. Presumably you weren’t even UPS 2/3 when you quit. Yes, you should have linked it, but 5 years won’t ruin your eventual retirement.

OP, there is a knowledgeable poster on Moneysaving Expert pension forum called Silvertabby, who is/was a LGPS pensions adminstrator. I'm sure she would be able to reassure you about the differences between keeping the two pensions separate vs amalgamating them.

I don't think it would actually have made that much difference from my understanding. Both are now career average schemes post 2014 rather than final salary: there is no pension pot per se. (I was in TPS for 9 years and did transfer into LGPS where I was employed for 34 years, retiring on a much higher salary, so I do have some understanding).

No it isn’t.

Although the schemes did change to career average (the LGPS in 2014 and TPS in 2015) the OP would have accrued final salary benefits up until those dates, and where transfers are made between public sector schemes the final salary link is retained as long as there hasn’t been a 5 year gap. So the OP is correct that if she had transferred final salary membership from TPS into LGPS then it would now be linked to her final salary in the LGPS.

OP, write to your LGPS administering authority and ask if you can transfer in now. They do have the discretion to allow it - they may not but it’s worth a try. If you’ve got the letter you were sent at the time and it wasn’t clear that it would be linked to your LGPS final salary if you transferred use this as your argument. Otherwise, say that because of the change of schemes to career average you didn’t realise the implications but now the McCloud remedy is in place you realise that a transfer is now in your best interests. As I said it’s worth a try.

Oh and the course does lots on mindset and not beating yourself up for past decisions - that bit will help too!

That’s not how pensions work, you are confusing a DB scheme and a DC scheme.

Your 3% contributions are going into a pot in your name. 100% yours and untouchable.

The 28% isn’t going into a pot, it’s being used to pay already retired pensioners.

I moved to another local authority about 20 years ago BUT didnt link my pension primarily because the salary in my new job was slightly less.

BUT because I didnt link it my 'old' pension was index linked rather than tied to the earnings in my new role (Long Story) AND I had a retained right to retire at 60. In short I didnt do at all badly out of it.

However I did have about 22 years service in the old job which made it more significant than your 6

This.

OP, don’t use ChatGPT for pension advice.

(I hate all this reliance on ChatGPT, Copilot etc. 9/10 the information is incorrect)

No sorry that is incorrect. She has four years of a final salary scheme and one year of a career average. She will absolutely not get a final salary pension based on her salary at retirement in circa 2045 on that basis. Just as nobody still in TPS will get a final salary pension based on their salary at retirement in 2045. Absolutely not.

Lol, you need to take your own advice.

that 28% maybe paying existing pensions? but the schemes benefits will be based on those 28% contributions... and its all theirs too, subject to the scheme not going bust, as as in any scheme.

the LGS is self financing, its very profitable.