Transfering Private Pension into NHS Pension

jamesd

Easy bit first is that there's no hurry, so you could start by thinking, yes, I'll do the mortgage LTV reduction, join the pension.

The cost over a payment plan should increase for a few reasons. First is that the government has the money for less time, so they get to have use of it for less time. You also don't have use of it for the time between now and the time you can take the pension so there's a lost gain cost for you by buying early, it's why it's relatively inexpensive to do it now.

When you start taking money from the pension it'll increase in a way related to inflation so it actually takes less than 11 years to break even. Life expectancy for a woman aged 65 is for around half to live to 88 or so at the moment and it's increasing, which is why many workplace pensions are shifting to later retirement ages and/or higher employee contributions.

We're looking at this to some extent int eh wrong direction. Should really be starting by asking how much income you will need and a higher want amount in retirement. Then that can be compared to what you might expect now and you could work out how to get there or whether you could retire earlier. No hurry to do this, though, there's no harm at all in taking six months to learn and decide things, other than the initial joining of the pension. So take your time and relax. It took me years to learn what I write about here so you can take it gently as well.

[Deleted User]

So probably not the right time to be writing this as I am tired after another sleepless night and bad mirgraine. However, just getting it off my chest so I can assess when I've finished work and in a better frame of mind. I know this dilema I have is small fry compared to most but it is only a tiny part of a much bigger dilema which I will address on another thread if I can face it.

So my manager has been in touch with the NHS, I am being allowed to back date my pension to when I started in June 2010 as I should have been automatically opted in and completed a form if I wanted to opt out. My manager has says it is her fault but it is partly mine but I don't want to go into that now.

So she has prepared the numbers for me. If I want to backdate I can choose to go back to the beginning or choose another date. Obviously I have to pay 5% and my employers will pay the 14%. Now as this is only a part-time job of 10 hours a week we are not talking a lot of money here. The problem that I need to clarify is, if I backdate back to 2010 can I still transfer my small private pension in as you can only do this within the first 12 months of joining; I suspect not! I shall phone my manager today and ask the question.

I have still to receive the transfer value of my private pension which I suspect is around £7k and the costs of transfering.

So my choice seems to be; backdate to 2010 and keep my private pension where it is OR backdate approx 6/8 months (assuming this would allow enough time to transfer) and transfer my private pension into the NHS one.

As I have discovered anything to do with pensions is not simple, any thoughts anyone?

jamesd

Wow! Being allowed to backdate is a great deal! Go for it, all the way back to the beginning unless there's that transfer complication.

But you may still be able to buy extra years with the transferred or they may handle you as a case where their failures didn't give you the options you should have had at the time you should have had them and let you do both as a form of redress to put you back into the position you should have been in.

What I suggest you do is say that:

1. You want to backdate to the beginning.
2. Had you been given the options earlier you'd also have transferred in the 7k personal pension to buy added years within 12 months of joining and also want to do that even though they are backdating the joining bit.

Then let them sort out saying yes or no.

edinburgher

Wow! Being allowed to backdate is a great deal!

Indeed - the employer contribution is so important!

I spoke to a colleague the other day who has been with my employer for 4 years and says he should 'get round to' looking at the pension scheme. I didn't have the heart/wasn't mean enough to tell him he'd effectively given up on £10k of free contributions by leaving it so late...