Early retirement at 50 and NI

LindaMary

My husband is taking early retirement from BT next week at 50.We have enough to live on but what do we do about National Insurance? ( he has 34 years in).I only have 24 years of contributions as i have now cut my own working hours down to 4 hours a week and dont intend to go back to any more hours. What does he do about NI, i know we can make voluntary payments but i have heard there now may be changes to the number of years you need.
Good sound advice needed!

skintmostofthetime

We too would like to know re thisd, but only thinking @ this time - and we also have some endowments - don't go there! - and wonder if we should bother to keep paying `em `cos home worth £250,000 and policies worth - if they pay in full £28.000- any advise please.

EdInvestor

The Government plans to reduce the number of years required for the full state pension to 30 for those retiring after 2010. So looks like the husband will be OK - he should stop paying and wait and see: if the rules don't change he can just pay up the back years.However the OP herself will need to keep paying voluntary conts.


Re the endowmens post some info about them for a view:

Provider
Guaranteed sum assured
Declared boinuses
Surrender value
Monthly premium
Maturity date
Maturity projections

Mr_helpful

State pension entitlement can be topped up with voluntary class3 national insurance contributions

[Deleted User]

EdInvestor wrote: »

- he should stop paying and wait and see: if the rules don't change he can just pay up the back years.

Hi I'm thinking of doing something very similar, but if I don't pay Class 3 NI, can I pay for back dated years as a lunp sum if I receive a reduced pension due not having paid enough years.

skintmostofthetime

Endowments - taken out `cos I was guarentor for old parents, 2 with N.U. and 1 with Prud. Pru is not going to meet estimated val but N.U. looks likely to but do wonder if wasting time paying for `em. Prob good idea if only `cos we wouldn't save it if it didn't go in there - if you get me. Intention is to sel up & leave country - already have property in Spain and a mortgage on it but only 7 y's to go both there and here. Only paying about £70 per month so not lots.

dunstonh

Pru is not going to meet estimated val but N.U. looks likely to but do wonder if wasting time paying for `em.

Pru have a 100% track record to date on maturing endowments and are trending in the right direction (100% in 2005 with an average surplus od £2,200 and 100% in 2006 with an average surplus of £3,300).

Neither Pru or NU include final bonus accrued to date in their projections. This makes the projections lower than the likely value.