You were contracted out....

Tammer

Hi,

Taking a half full approach - One advantage of having been contracted out is that you have a smaller state pension as a result.

You say in your OP that you moved to another country. If you live outside the UK please note that the state pension does not increase if you live in some countries e.g. Canada or Australia. If this applies to you then it may have been a good thing to have been contracted out.

T

Happychappy

Hi, Is there any way to check which years a person was contracted out ? my wife has a pension forecast of the max state pension of £164 per week, by states she was contracted out and has a Cope of £20.91p per week, she thinks this was with Boots during a period mid 70s for around 8/9 years ?
I have written to Boots Pension to ask if they have details of a pension, however, my wife also worked for other companies from the late 80's till mid 90's, so if I knew what years she was contracted out, this may identify when she was possibly in a private works pension ? any help appreciated

Albermarle

In my case at least the personal pension that received the contracted out NI contributions was completely separate from my employer(s), so contacting an ex employer to find details might not be very fruitful.
On the other hand , like all other personal pensions , the pension provider sent me a statement every year and this has continued long after the contracted out contributions stopped.
So anybody who has 'lost' a pension has probably moved address and not informed the provider.

Tassie_Devil

I had one of these that I only found out about in spring last year, dating back to 1991 when I took zero interest in planning for the future, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover a pot of £79000.


To those people saying "How could you not know?", I just wasn't bothered about pension planning back then, it all seemed too far away to think about.



Now, of course, if only I'd put a bit more aside......

mum_of_joey

It isn't unusual that people would not know about their pension pot. As I mentioned in an earlier post, after 29 years, a pension that I never knew I had surfaced. I could not have been informed properly of what would happen, as, believe me, I would have leaped on this pension pot, had I known about it. Instead, I ended up with terrible debts, incurring tons of interest, and am on a debt management programme. I have moved 14 times during those 29 years, and only received this one letter, to my knowledge, this year, saying what my pension was worth. They had somehow caught up with my present address, even though it was in my previous married name, not my last married name.

Sometimes, people just don't realise that they should be 'checking' - checking what? If you are given the impression that if you pay less out by contracting out, and you would get less state pension in many years time, why should you know that you should be checking for something else?

GunJack

mum_of_joey wrote: »

Sometimes, people just don't realise that they should be 'checking' - checking what? If you are given the impression that if you pay less out by contracting out, and you would get less state pension in many years time, why should you know that you should be checking for something else?

Because the whole point of contracting-out was to give you:-

1. what was Basic state Pension
2. no SERPS/S2P (state earnings-related element), and
3. AN OCCUPATIONAL PENSION IN ADDITION TO YOUR STATE PENSION!!!!!!

It never meant "getting a lower state pension", it meant not getting the Additional earnings-related elements in return for what, in the vast majority of cases, was a far superior "earnings related" element of retirement income, i.e. point 3 above...

....THIS is why you should have been checking "something else"...

Mnd

gardner1 wrote: »

I'm sorry but how do you not realize you've contracted out and have £50 & £40k do people not check

My wife had a total lack of knowledge or interest in financial matters when we met, just got her payslip, saw what she had and carried on.
I don't know if her payslip at that time showed a pension contribution as how I understand it she was paying reduced NI contributions.
it turned out that she signed this in 1986 I think
We found this out when I encouraged her to do her state pension forecast and it said she still needed 5 years NI for full SPA despite having 40 years working.
A few phone calls later and we were a lot better off than we thought!
This enabled me to retire at 63, a year earlier than I planned, and she will retire at 61.5.
It was probably a good thing that she forgot all about this as she would probably stopped doing it in her younger days (marrying a older grumpy miser:beer: has calmed her down a lot)

It's not uncommon, there are several threads on here which seem to have a common link, which is a lack of knowledge about money in general, perhaps the long awaited pension dashboard will be a help

xylophone

so if I knew what years she was contracted out, this may identify when she was possibly in a private works pension ? any help appreciated

She may have a pension with Boots but "contracting out" as such started in 1978.

Try

https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

https://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/state-pension/what-was-contracting-out-a581c3l1kqf4

bownyboy

gardner1 wrote: »

I'm sorry but how do you not realize you've contracted out and have £50 & £40k do people not check

Ha! Good point. Well I was only 18 and knew / cared nothing about pensions. I was sold a pension in Barclays by a salesman who said I didn't need to do anything and it was 'free money' from the government.

I never paid into it and forgot all about it. Only years later did I find the original paperwork and wondered if there was anything in there.

Was not expecting £40k to have built up.

LHW99

I'm sorry but how do you not realize you've contracted out

When many of these schemes were running there was no internet, no email, very obstruse documents relating to what you signed up for. I have always been fairly literate / numerate, but it still took many years of digging and re-reading to get even 3/4 of an idea of what the paperwork I had meant, and I have kept all payslips from when I started work, all documents from savings and pension schemes and I am approaching retirement now. Those with less interest / understanding / squirrel mentality would / will have problems.