Civil Servant Pension

stebiz

My wife is a civil servant and has a final salary scheme. She has had time off, bringing up kids and they estimate her final salary will be about 34/80. She can buy years. Does anybody know how this works please???

Regards

Stebiz

Marsh_Samphire

Hi stebiz

I used to be a civil servant and I bought some additional years for my pension. From what I remember, you contact the pension dept (they were very helpful) and they tell you how much each year will cost. You can choose how many additional years you want to buy and then they take the cost out of your pay each month. When you retire you get more pension, based on the total years you've actually worked for them plus the extra ones you bought. For civil servants it's a good way of increasing your pension, better than AVCs I think. If I had stayed in the civil service I would have bought enough years to get the maximum pension, which would have been 1/2 my final salary, and even now having left, when I do retire it will still be a bit more because of the extra years I got. Hope this helps.

stebiz

Thnaks for that Marsh. I know it is a long shot (and I'll ask my wife to enquire with her employer) but how much as a guide would you pay per year. Can you remember?? Was it dear??

Cheers
Stebiz

Ian_W

Mrs W is a nurse and under the NHS pension scheme she can retire at 55 but wouldn't qualify for a full pension unless she worked until age 60. A few years ago she decided to purchase the extra 5yrs and it does work out expensive because they're being purchased over a shorter timescale but mainly because there is no employer contribution for extra years purchased. She pays more per month for the extra years than her normal pension contribution.

I don't think Marsh's costs would help you over much. It depends on how long to retirement as well as how many years she needs/wants to purchase. Her pensions dept are the only ones who can give the answer.

Although it's expensive it's probably well worth doing if you can afford it.

Mikeyorks

Your wife needs to contact the pension side of her current paying office. Most CS pensions went through a revise a few years ago when a choice of schemes were available (Classic / Classic Plus / Premium / Partnership)
Depending on the choice she made then - her options may be different to other people's experiences. It won't cost her to ask - and it's the only way you will ascertain the precise options / costs / benefits.

The Cabinet Office (Pensions) website is on this link and you may find something - provided she knows which option she is on. But she must approach the Pensions side of the Dept she is in.

http://www.civilservice-pensions.gov.uk/index.asp

TrickyTrotter_2

stebiz wrote:

Thnaks for that Marsh. I know it is a long shot (and I'll ask my wife to enquire with her employer) but how much as a guide would you pay per year. Can you remember?? Was it dear??

Cheers
Stebiz

It's an individual calculation based on how long you've got left before the age of 60 and how many years you are buying - the cost is calculated as a monthly figure spread over your remaining working life.

waterbaby

I sent for some info on this a few months ago, and I'm looking at a table which relates your current age to the percentage of salary you need to give up to get one added year.

As an example, someone aged 40 and 0 months, would need to pay 1.33% of their gross salary until they retire. To get 6 extra years therefore, (to top her up to the 40/80), assuming she is aged 40, she would pay 6*1.33=8% of her gross pay each month.

The older you are, the higher the percentage. Someone aged 20 pays 0.67%, while someone aged 59 pays 29.65% as they have very little time to make up the gap.

I would post a link to the table, but I never managed to find one - I only have a paper copy. If you want to post her age (in years and months) I can tell you the percentage.

Is she in classic? If so, she can buy added years with a lump sum (don't know about that as I am in premium.

Andy_L

waterbaby wrote:

I would post a link to the table, but I never managed to find one - I only have a paper copy. If you want to post her age (in years and months) I can tell you the percentage.

As I understand it the values change as actuarial opinions on life expetancy change, so a table more than a few years old is a rough guideline only (safe to assume it's gone up though)

Andy