Pension payments stopped

chrissieruss

About 30 years ago my husband started paying into a pension plan and predicted he would like to retire at 60. This isn’t possible, unfortunately, and we have just found out today that payments to his pension plan payments were stopped in March. We missed this in a a letter sent and thought that the payments would only stop once he decided to draw the pension. We would like to resume the payments and keep the plan ‘live’. Maybe we are a bit naive, can anyone advise us?

TcpnT

Just contact the provider and ask them. I don't see why it should be a problem.

xylophone

And (if you have not already done this), check your state pension forecast for planning purposes.

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Is your husband also contributing to an occupational pension?

Asghar

chrissieruss wrote: »

About 30 years ago my husband started paying into a pension plan and predicted he would like to retire at 60. This isn’t possible, unfortunately, and we have just found out today that payments to his pension plan payments were stopped in March. We missed this in a a letter sent and thought that the payments would only stop once he decided to draw the pension. We would like to resume the payments and keep the plan ‘live’. Maybe we are a bit naive, can anyone advise us?

Presumably when he took out the plan he told them that he wanted to retire at 60 and the pension company automatically stopped taking the direct debits when he reached that age.

Nothing wrong with that. If you want, just ring them up and say that he wants to continue paying in and adding/investing more money into the pension plan.

Not sure what you mean about resuming the payments to keep the plan alive. The plan has not gone away, it is still there with all the money he has invested so far and is probably worth more than he has put in.

It is a pot of money that he is building up, like putting it into a bank account. It's not life insurance where if you stop the payments the policy stops.

Albermarle

If for some reason the pension provider does not allow any more payments, there is nothing to stop you starting a new pension .
In fact it is probably worth investigating this option as a 30 year old pension may have higher charges and less options when he comes to take the money.

You should even have the possibility to transfer the old pension into the new one , if the charges etc were lower

chrissieruss

Thanks all, they’re going to send him a form.

Alice_Holt

Just wondering, if the plan dates back 30 yrs, what the plan charges are and if they are competitive with more recent schemes. It may be worth exploring this before putting more money in.

Could be a better option to divert that money into his current workplace scheme?

LHW99

Just wondering, if the plan dates back 30 yrs, what the plan charges are and if they are competitive with more recent schemes. It may be worth exploring this before putting more money in.

But also if there are any guarantees attached that are worth keeping the plan for.