GMP Pension Concerns

kangoora

Back in 1989 I paid into a DB pension scheme for 10 months. I then had 3 more jobs before settling into a firm and i 'thought' I'd transferred all my pensions into that scheme.

Obviously i hadn't as the pension administrator contacted me last july (Mercer) to tell me of this pension and they asked if i had any paperwork relating to the pension. After several searches nothing turned up, about 12 house moves (plus thinking it was transferred) since 1989 will do that

Mercer has been blaming HMRC in not providing GMP details but now they are saying the details provided by HMRC do not match their background information so they are querying it back with them again. We're now about 7 months in.

I'm quite a few years off even early retirment so there is no mad rush on this but would still like to understand how much may be involved.

Having seen a thread recently where Mercer are attempting to force people to accept small pot payouts I don't have 100% confidence in the company. I may be wrong and they are working in my best interests.......hmmmm, yeah.

Is there any information on this pension I can request from Mercer that they are obliged to provide me and under what grounds - Data Protection or something else? I assume I could use the Freedom of Information Act to get details from HMRC that they have provided to Mercer?

Or am I worrying over nothing?

Daniel54

Are you clear that your contributions wern't refunded ?

It was common at the time that this was the only option if you had been a member for less than a certain time , typically two years

kangoora

Daniel54 wrote: »

Are you clear that your contributions wern't refunded ?

It was common at the time that this was the only option if you had been a member for less than a certain time , typically two years

Fairly sure, I doubt Mercer would have contacted me if I didn't have some pension rights

I joined the firm in question and joined their original pension fund. About 10 months before I left I started contributions into this new fund due to a takeover. When I swept up all my pensions a few years later (or thought I had) after being with another employer, i got the original fund but forgot about this one, to the best of my recollection anyway.

I'm assuming I didn't get a refund of contributions because I was employed by them for over 2 years, just paying into 2 different funds over that 2 years. Another assumption is that they probably never merged the two funds but kept them separate or I wouldn't have been able to just transfer one of the 2 funds into their final resting place.

xylophone

It's odd.

You joined a company with a DB scheme and just over a year into your employment, the firm was taken over by another concern with its own DB scheme.

You contributed to both schemes.

You think that you transferred out of the first scheme but left the contributions in the second scheme behind.

This seems to be post 88 GMP.

http://www.barnett-waddingham.co.uk/comment-insight/blog/2014/08/18/what-is-a-gmp/

It may be that the discrepancy arises because Mercer have records of one GMP amount only and HMRC have amalgamated them?

Or possibly there has been some confusion arising about methods of revaluation in deferment?

One assumes that this will need to be sorted out because of the reconciliation exercise that will be carried out in preparation for the new state pension.

kangoora

Yes, all very confusing

I'm assuming Mercer didn't like the HMRC assessment so that's why they are going back to them for confirmation.

I'm tempted to do a Freedom of Information Act request on HMRC to see what they sent Mercer but not sure what it would tell me or if it would provide any benefit

greenglide

If you "thought" that your contributions had been refunded is it possible that the scheme thought you had been bought back into the state scheme (which is what the pension scheme would have to do) but HMRC thought you were still in the scheme or vice-versa.

We are talking about records from 1989 input by the Contributions Agency into the NIRS system, survived transfer into NIRS2 (many didnt!) and now in NPS.

No-one really knows what is there until decades later.

kangoora

Well, I dug out my old payslips and they show a grand total of £913 pension deductions from my salary over 13 months (not 10 as I thought).

I'm 99% sure this pension survived as when I reviewed my transfers IN to the company I moved to eventually when I tried to consolidate back in 1994 it only showed two pensions being credited in and not 3 which I didn't pick up on at the time.

I have absolutely no idea what this could be worth but not expecting much at all - still, better in my pocket than theirs