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Advice on Teacher getting Early Retirement Through Ill Health
rosturra
Posts: 21 Forumite
HI All;
My wife is 55. She is a supply teacher - but always worked directly with schools rather than agencies, so has been paid by the county / authority. Hence always paid into teachers Pension.
In practice she worked maybe 75% of the school year - as you don't get work all the time as a supply teacher. To keep the maths simple, lets assume she earned £20,000 pa. And started teaching when she was 25.
When she was 50 she contacted a debilitating disease . I won't go into details, not cancer, but she needed chemotherapy and is now on strong auto-immune suppression drugs, and other drugs to reduce side effects.
She has many symptoms from the disease , and from the drugs she is on.
If she wanted to retire early she would be supported by her GP / consultant. So that is not an issue. However she likes her job, and the social interaction, so wanted to continue as much as possible.
Because of her symptoms, she reduced her hours and now only works the odd afternoon.
Her earnings since the age of 50 have been very low. Less than £5000.
We have only looked into Early retirement now, as she has just realised that her pension scheme will look back on her earnings, and take an average of the best three years of the last ten, for determining salary.
Obviously her last 5 years are no good for this, and so her pension would be based on the best 3 years from 2009-2014 (hopefully averaging £20,000). The longer we leave it, the smaller the range of dates to choose the 'best three' get. So we need to act now to freeze that period.
We have looked into this and I would like to present my understanding. Can anyone, who knows the system please comment, that we are doing the correct thing, and have not missed a trick.
With respect, we don't want to hear messages of sympathy etc. (Hope that doesn't sound hard) but please just keep it to the pragmatics & experience of applying for Early retirement.
1) We have been advised for Her to opt out of the pension NOW. This will freeze her pension end date, from which the 10 years will be back dated, to the last date she worked (which was May 2018).
2) For the sake of this discussion, assume that Medics will sign off Early Retirement.
3) There are two tiers of Teacher Early Retirement on ill health. Tier 1 : no penalty for not completing service. Tier 2: As 1, but that scheme will enhance pension by 50% of time left to complete service. (So if you have 5 years left, it will be as if you had 2.5 years left).
4) If you take tier 1, you cannot teach again. But you could work elsewhere.
If you take tier 2, you cannot teach again. And you cannot work elsewhere.
(Can someone confirm this?)
5) We are going to apply for Tier 1, so she still has the opportunity to work elsewhere, if she feels up to it, in the future.
6) For the last 10 years, she only worked for 1 school, and was the "on call" supply teacher.
7) As she is a supply teacher, she did not have a managed reduction of responsibilities, or hours arranged with school. [ This is one of the questions on the form ]. Instead she informally made it clear to the secretary & deputy , that she was only available for afternoon work. So basically she would not be called, if a full day's supply work was needed.
Questions.
1) Due to her illness , is there any mileage in applying to the trustees, and asking that they look back on the 10 years PRIOR to her illness when determining the best 3 year average?
2) Any advice on applying for early retirement, e.g. What documents we will need. What obstacles to expect etc.
3) I assume that her last school have a duty of care, to carry out any supporting paperwork. And they can't say "She was only a supply, and we don't have the time for admin. "
4) Is there anything we have got wrong, missed out, or otherwise should be aware of?
Thank you kindly.
My wife is 55. She is a supply teacher - but always worked directly with schools rather than agencies, so has been paid by the county / authority. Hence always paid into teachers Pension.
In practice she worked maybe 75% of the school year - as you don't get work all the time as a supply teacher. To keep the maths simple, lets assume she earned £20,000 pa. And started teaching when she was 25.
When she was 50 she contacted a debilitating disease . I won't go into details, not cancer, but she needed chemotherapy and is now on strong auto-immune suppression drugs, and other drugs to reduce side effects.
She has many symptoms from the disease , and from the drugs she is on.
If she wanted to retire early she would be supported by her GP / consultant. So that is not an issue. However she likes her job, and the social interaction, so wanted to continue as much as possible.
Because of her symptoms, she reduced her hours and now only works the odd afternoon.
Her earnings since the age of 50 have been very low. Less than £5000.
We have only looked into Early retirement now, as she has just realised that her pension scheme will look back on her earnings, and take an average of the best three years of the last ten, for determining salary.
Obviously her last 5 years are no good for this, and so her pension would be based on the best 3 years from 2009-2014 (hopefully averaging £20,000). The longer we leave it, the smaller the range of dates to choose the 'best three' get. So we need to act now to freeze that period.
We have looked into this and I would like to present my understanding. Can anyone, who knows the system please comment, that we are doing the correct thing, and have not missed a trick.
With respect, we don't want to hear messages of sympathy etc. (Hope that doesn't sound hard) but please just keep it to the pragmatics & experience of applying for Early retirement.
1) We have been advised for Her to opt out of the pension NOW. This will freeze her pension end date, from which the 10 years will be back dated, to the last date she worked (which was May 2018).
2) For the sake of this discussion, assume that Medics will sign off Early Retirement.
3) There are two tiers of Teacher Early Retirement on ill health. Tier 1 : no penalty for not completing service. Tier 2: As 1, but that scheme will enhance pension by 50% of time left to complete service. (So if you have 5 years left, it will be as if you had 2.5 years left).
4) If you take tier 1, you cannot teach again. But you could work elsewhere.
If you take tier 2, you cannot teach again. And you cannot work elsewhere.
(Can someone confirm this?)
5) We are going to apply for Tier 1, so she still has the opportunity to work elsewhere, if she feels up to it, in the future.
6) For the last 10 years, she only worked for 1 school, and was the "on call" supply teacher.
7) As she is a supply teacher, she did not have a managed reduction of responsibilities, or hours arranged with school. [ This is one of the questions on the form ]. Instead she informally made it clear to the secretary & deputy , that she was only available for afternoon work. So basically she would not be called, if a full day's supply work was needed.
Questions.
1) Due to her illness , is there any mileage in applying to the trustees, and asking that they look back on the 10 years PRIOR to her illness when determining the best 3 year average?
2) Any advice on applying for early retirement, e.g. What documents we will need. What obstacles to expect etc.
3) I assume that her last school have a duty of care, to carry out any supporting paperwork. And they can't say "She was only a supply, and we don't have the time for admin. "
4) Is there anything we have got wrong, missed out, or otherwise should be aware of?
Thank you kindly.
0
Comments
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You might be better off asking on the TES retirement forum than here, as you would probably get more response, and ill health retirement has been covered on there several times. You can read the older threads or make one of your own.
Don't know about the ill health bit, but you are correct on the best three consecutive years in 10 to calculate pension. If you log on to the teacher's pension website with your details, it will give you a breakdown of salaries earned (uprated for inflation) and the best three consecutive months and years currently being used to calculate the pension. It may be definitely worth your while opting out now, as inflation for those 2009, 2010, 2011 years were higher than those after hence more pension. Again, on the TES retirement forum, if you search for it, it has a breakdown on inflation for those years and how it affects your pension.0 -
You might be better off asking on the TES retirement forum than here, as you would probably get more response, and ill health retirement has been covered on there several times. You can read the older threads or make one of your own.
.
Sorry. Where is this TES retirement forum? On MSE or elsewhere?
Can I ask a mod to move this thread?0 -
Sorry. Where is this TES retirement forum? On MSE or elsewhere?
Can I ask a mod to move this thread?
No, its the Times Educational Supplment forum, nothing to do with here.
Don't know if I'm allowed to post links, but if you google 'TES retirement forum', its the first link to show.0 -
Thanks. I have duplcated this thread on Times Educational Supplement.
But if anyone here has anything to suggest , I will be monitoring both.0 -
We have only looked into Early retirement now, as she has just realised that her pension scheme will look back on her earnings, and take an average of the best three years of the last ten, for determining salary.
Obviously her last 5 years are no good for this, and so her pension would be based on the best 3 years from 2009-2014 (hopefully averaging £20,000). The longer we leave it, the smaller the range of dates to choose the 'best three' get. So we need to act now to freeze that period.
The calculations for final salary schemes use the full time salary for working out the pension. The effect of reducing hours is reflected by each year of part-time work only counting as the appropriate fraction of a year for calculating length of service.
eg her 1st 25 years at 75% are worth 18.75 years
Her next 5 years at (guesstimate) 10% full time are worth 0.5 years.
Thus she will have 19.25 years of service worth 19.25/60ths (depending on which final salary scheme she is in) of her full time equivalent salary which would then be subject to reductions for early payment/enhancements for ill-health retirement0 -
I'd contact TPAS (who have plenty of experience of the TPS and ill health retirements): https://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/ask-us
Free, impartial and will give you the chance to actually talk to someone on the phone rather than relying on messages, e-mails etc.Googling on your question might have been both quicker and easier, if you're only after simple facts rather than opinions!0 -
We have taken the decision to retire early. Thankfully not through our ill health. My husband had to give up work before the end of the next academic year for the same reason,as your wife in that his pension would go down, as he took a much less stressful job (also less well paid) in the last few years.
Everything that everyone has said so far is excellent advice. The teachers pension people are really good and very helpful. Definitely worth logging on there if you have not done so already. Only other thing to suggest is the union may be able to give some advice or direct you to where to get someEnough money to live on so retired early...planning to see where life takes me:D0 -
I agree, although I would marginally suggest a phone call rather than the website for this, as the information on the site is not always easy to find.The teachers pension people are really good and very helpful. Definitely worth logging on there if you have not done so already.0 -
I agree, although I would marginally suggest a phone call rather than the website for this, as the information on the site is not always easy to find.
I would second that; emails don't get speedy replies, and the website is a bit of a maze. When exploring it, take lots of screenshots to print out later.
When phoning, be aware they can's suggest plans of action (as that would be advice) but they can talk about their consequences, so line up questions like if I do this will I then be allowed to do that?
They are very helpful but they're not supposed to be proactive and push ideas on you.
Don't expect them to be able to quote precise figures about your individual pension over the phone either- they take ages for them to work out.
As said before you may find that your best salary years will fall off the end if you delay retirement too long.
If you have been buying Past Added years to boost the pension, you may be offered the choice to cut it before you earn the full amount of extra pension, or else they will ask you to make a lump sum to make it up to the full amount Note that this lump sum payment to them to cover this can't come from any pension tax-free lump sum that you might expect to receive from them - that would be called recycling and could trigger very serious penalties.There is no honour to be had in not knowing a thing that can be known - Danny Baker0 -
Thanks for advice everyone. Was unable to log in yesterday.
Hence we have phoned Pensions advisory service, who were very helpful. As indeed were teacher Pensions.
Formal resignation has been posted now! So now going through the process.0
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