My mum has 2 National Insurance numbers

mamaduke

Hi my 72 year old mum found an old card last week with a different national insurance number on it to the present one she is using.
The old one is definetly hers as it has all her details on but appears to be for the time she first started working up to when she left to have a family, from approx 1952 to 1964.
She is presently recieving a pension which quoates her present NI number on.
She rang the tax office who simply said she couldnt possibly have 2 NI numbers.
She is now wondering if it will confuse her pension if she pursues it further, I think though that she may be entitled to additional pension for the 12 years her present NI number may not include.
Anyone have any experience or comments please?

EdInvestor

Was she paying "married woman's stamp" before she left to have the family?If so she wouldn't be entitled to pension for those years or for Home Responsibilities Protection credits (introduced in 1978).

siren13577

Hi,

Can I ask what the second national insurance number looks like? If it starts with TN something it is a temporary national insurance number, and your mum's records can easily be merged with her proper ones and all her contributions will be added to that one.
If this isn't the case I would go, with your mum, to the local tax office and discuss it with someone there, it can be easily rectified and is nothing to be too worried about. I used to work for HMIT in the section that dealt with PAYE and some pension enquiries and some of the old national insurance numbers look different, but I can't remember exactly the prefix but we could recognise them easily. Go to:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm
to locate a tax office in your area.
You'll have to go with your mum as they probably won't allow you to help her without your mum being there. Good luck and I hope this helps a bit.

jinny

The number you need is 08453021479 thats the National Insurance Contact Centre number who will deal with that query. The tax part of Hmrc cannot help with National Insurance queries. There isn't a geographical number I'm afraid.

siren13577

The HMRC can help, NICO no longer exists and is included under HMRC, try here:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nic/

knuckledragger

Two NI numbers? Good time for two ISAs! (Just joking- that would be illegal of course...:D )

MikeJones_2

Hi mamaduke,

Duplicate National Insurance numbers made media headlines in the summer. Apparently it is not that uncommon in certain situations according to this report. See:

Pensioners left penniless by NI blunders

I hope your mother doesn't suffer any negative consequences, as some of the individuals in the article appear to have.

Mike Jones

I work in the field of Pension Education and Pension Guidance in the UK. I am a current member of the Specialist Pensions Forum as well as being a Voluntary Adviser for The Pensions Advisory Service. I work with scheme members, employers, trustees, scheme administrators and advisers on most things to do with employer sponsored pension schemes. The views expressed by me in this thread are my personal opinions. You should seek professional advice from an appropriately experienced and qualified adviser. I am not an IFA.

mamaduke

Hi thanks for all your replies, she did pay married womens stamp for some of that time (about 5 years) but just regular stamp for the first 7.
Both NI numbers are permanent not temporary.
That article is scary, how can they get so many people mixed up?
I think we might just leave it, dont want to mess things up for her!

ALIBOBSY

Alot of these problems date back to the fact that these systems were paper systems (obviously prior to computerisation), then when transfered to computer alot of paperwork was achived, making it hard to retrieve.

Now instead of being allocated a NINO at 16 ,children are allocated one at birth (the births and registers system is cross referrenced with the ni system for this), hopefully this will improve things but who knows computers go wrong as well lol.

I remember working on pensions when they switched the old NI conts computer system (NIRS) off and switched the new one on (NIRS2). We were told that we would have 2 weeks without being able to access NI info to do the pension calaculations. Being a very cynical lot who had worked for the government for many years between us, we had a sweepstake on how long it would actually be off for. One guy said "jokingly" 12 months. Guess who won the money.

We were requesting old microfiche info, checking old benefit files from other benefits asking for paper details from the customer. Anything to be able to make some kind of benefit award till the system came back online.

Typical government plan instead of keeping the old system running whilst the new one was getting going, it was cheaper to pay for the new one and just shut the old one down.

ali x

elmer

Both my brother and I were each issued with two different NI numbers at 16, I have been assured that this will not cause a problem when I reach pensionable age, however I have only used one of them. Anyone need a spare NI number?

Elmer

oldandgrumpy

I have heard of the other alternative....2 people with the same NI number. That IS trouble.