Claiming French pension from the UK

broads22

Just wondering if people know that CARSAT Normandie have a twitter page?

Progress in claiming my French pension has been positively glacial. And each time there seems to be a new person to deal with.

My situation is that I worked in Monaco in 1991/92 and paid into the Caisse for 18 months; I was born in January 1954, so iof anyone has any gems to share I'd appreciate it, thanks

jayclock

In case anyone is still following this thread, here is my experience which might well help. It will make a significant difference if you speak French fluently, in particular you if speak French pension language fluently. I am more or less bilingual in French, but no, not an expert in Pensions!  I also worked in HR which helps.

My background is that I did a French degree and spent eight months in 1982 to 83 working as a language assistant in a school in France. Very low salary and I didn't have any thought about pension at that time. I then took a job as an employee in France for a big international company in 1999 to 2002, pretty much exactly 3 years employment, and quite a high management salary plus bonuses.

All of the rest of my career I have worked in the UK.

It turns out there are three bits of pension I can claim from France

1 "pension de base" .  I successfully claimed this from 1.8.24 (age 62.5) and now receiving €98 per month.  This is the base old age pension.  I will still be getting my UK pension from age 67

2 Public sector pension for my short and low paid employment as a student.  Due to the tiny amount it would be per month they settled this with a lump sum of €1100.  My understanding was that there were no Social Security deductions due on this, but they took 40 something euros off, which I haven't bothered to complain about. This generated just over £900 which I frankly wasn't expecting! This was through a public sector pension scheme called IRCANTEC and once I realised I could claim it, was a quick process and helpful staff

3 Complementary private sector pension through AGIRC ARRCO.  Currently in the process of claiming this as I wrongly thought when I claimed the pension de base that I was claiming everything.  If I understand the quotation online correctly, it is substantially more than I would've expected for the relatively short period I worked there, so well worth claiming, but I may have misunderstood it!

CARSAT Normandie is I think the body that handles UK People for pension claims.  Oddly I had to apply to them via the UK.  I called (can't remember exactly which dept) and they posted me (yes posted) a form.  I completed this (stuff like name of employer and dates etc in France) and sent back.  Scan a copy of what you send.  I then got a letter that basically said "don't call us we'll call you".  After several months of nothing I called them again and they effectively pinged an email to the relevant department in France, and things then started to move more quickly

Depending on your employment history, you may have other pension schemes to claim under.

I cannot remember the exact process, but I remember having to scan in some documents and upload them to the website.

Just a few really practical things.

1. You need to have your French Social Security number. This will be on any documentation from your employer, particularly payslips, etc. And anything medical/social security etc.  And I think bank statements.  If you don't have this, there's probably a way of going through requesting it, but I suspect that will require certified copies and translations of documents and a lot of hassle and I have no idea what that process is. I am not aware of any circumstances where you will have worked in France and not had a French Social Security number, so you probably need to get them to remind you of the correct number if you've lost it rather than trying to get a new one.  it is 13 digits in the format 1 23 45 67 890 123 and there are two additional digits that sometimes are needed so format is 1 23 45 67 890 123 45.  It will tell you whether they require the 13 or 15 digit version of the number. But I'm not an expert on this, just going on the way minus constructed.

2. You need to be able to speak French well enough to hold a conversation with a French call centre dealing with pension terminology. You may get lucky and find someone speaking English, but I would be surprised if they'll be very helpful and you want to be on the front foot on this. 

3 To log into the various websites, you need your Social Security number, and obviously a password that you can set up. For some of the sites optionally or compulsory you will also need to use a login process called France connect. Theoretically, you can use one of about half a dozen providers that they suggest to set up the France connect login, but on a process of elimination it only really works if you use one called YRIS.  All the others require either a French ID document or passport, and/or a French mobile number for validation, if you haven't got those it won't work. So if you're British and have a UK mobile number. YRIS is the only one 

4. If it helps, most browsers have a translation feature, which is quite good to translate the various websites. Not gonna try answer that for you just Google it. I use Safari and Firefox and generally read the website in French but occasionally I do translate them and the translations are pretty good.

5. I do not fully understand it, but you get an increased pension if you had children. At one point in the process, I had to provide birth certificates for all my children, even though they're grown adults. Waiting to see whether they asked me to provide certified translation of those English documents. I believe the increase is 10%, but I'm not sure exactly how it works.

6. At some point in the process, they wanted a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions confirming that I was fully covered by UK Social Security and I would not be making any claims on the French system. It was surprisingly hard to find anyone who could do this. If you need this, I can provide a redacted copy of my letter so you can track down where I got it from .

7 at some point when payment is actually being made, you will be asked to produce an annual certificate to vie.  This is a form, signed to say that you are still alive! Traditionally, this is done by the local authority/Townhall in the UK, but they have now introduced in electronic/digital version which you do by scanning in your passport, using your phone and doing a live video of your face. Massively easier. I've been doing it for several years for my mother who has a Belgian pension and it is a complete pain to go to the council.

8. Starting point is to set up logins for the various websites. Some of them seem to repeat each other, but you may need all of them.

[I tried to post in links to all the relevant websites, but I am a new member and it won't let me. Ping me a message if you want to meet send them to you directly.]

BONNE CHANCE.  i will update when I get further with the pension complementaire

jayclock

here is what my "RIB" looks like 

jayclock

update.   I received a letter via the online portal for AGIRC ARRCO saying my claim for the complementary pension has been provisionally approved. My understanding is that it will not go down but could possibly go up. Money not received yet, but I am hoping in the next week and backdated to 1 Sept 2024.  I will be checking whether any tax or Social Security has been deducted, because my understanding is it should not have been. There is a modest reduction from the top line figure due to something called Tranche C points that I don't fully understand but I think it means that a small part of the pension is at a lower rate and that I could have the low rate now, but for several years more because it's earlier, or that I could have had zero payment under these points, but starting from approximately age 67. Either way, the total amount of money under the complementary scheme is about 400 pounds per month. Adding in the base pension it's a total of 480 pounds per month. That was based on three years service at approximately £60k and eight months service in 1982 on a salary of about £4k

QrizB

£480 a month is worth having, congratulations on navigating the system and beng paid!

jayclock

QrizB said:

£480 a month is worth having, congratulations on navigating the system and beng paid!

yes.  Apparently we had a very generous level of contributions from the employer.  Went bust badly in 2001 and laid 99% of us off but being France the payouts were huge!

jayclock

jayclock said:

In case anyone is still following this thread, here is my experience which might well help. It will make a significant difference if you speak French fluently, in particular you if speak French pension language fluently. I am more or less bilingual in French, but no, not an expert in Pensions!  I also worked in HR which helps.

My background is that I did a French degree and spent eight months in 1982 to 83 working as a language assistant in a school in France. Very low salary and I didn't have any thought about pension at that time. I then took a job as an employee in France for a big international company in 1999 to 2002, pretty much exactly 3 years employment, and quite a high management salary plus bonuses.

All of the rest of my career I have worked in the UK.

It turns out there are three bits of pension I can claim from France

1 "pension de base" .  I successfully claimed this from 1.8.24 (age 62.5) and now receiving €98 per month.  This is the base old age pension.  I will still be getting my UK pension from age 67

2 Public sector pension for my short and low paid employment as a student.  Due to the tiny amount it would be per month they settled this with a lump sum of €1100.  My understanding was that there were no Social Security deductions due on this, but they took 40 something euros off, which I haven't bothered to complain about. This generated just over £900 which I frankly wasn't expecting! This was through a public sector pension scheme called IRCANTEC and once I realised I could claim it, was a quick process and helpful staff

3 Complementary private sector pension through AGIRC ARRCO.  Currently in the process of claiming this as I wrongly thought when I claimed the pension de base that I was claiming everything.  If I understand the quotation online correctly, it is substantially more than I would've expected for the relatively short period I worked there, so well worth claiming, but I may have misunderstood it!

CARSAT Normandie is I think the body that handles UK People for pension claims.  Oddly I had to apply to them via the UK.  I called (can't remember exactly which dept) and they posted me (yes posted) a form.  I completed this (stuff like name of employer and dates etc in France) and sent back.  Scan a copy of what you send.  I then got a letter that basically said "don't call us we'll call you".  After several months of nothing I called them again and they effectively pinged an email to the relevant department in France, and things then started to move more quickly

Depending on your employment history, you may have other pension schemes to claim under.

I cannot remember the exact process, but I remember having to scan in some documents and upload them to the website.

Just a few really practical things.

1. You need to have your French Social Security number. This will be on any documentation from your employer, particularly payslips, etc. And anything medical/social security etc.  And I think bank statements.  If you don't have this, there's probably a way of going through requesting it, but I suspect that will require certified copies and translations of documents and a lot of hassle and I have no idea what that process is. I am not aware of any circumstances where you will have worked in France and not had a French Social Security number, so you probably need to get them to remind you of the correct number if you've lost it rather than trying to get a new one.  it is 13 digits in the format 1 23 45 67 890 123 and there are two additional digits that sometimes are needed so format is 1 23 45 67 890 123 45.  It will tell you whether they require the 13 or 15 digit version of the number. But I'm not an expert on this, just going on the way minus constructed.

2. You need to be able to speak French well enough to hold a conversation with a French call centre dealing with pension terminology. You may get lucky and find someone speaking English, but I would be surprised if they'll be very helpful and you want to be on the front foot on this. 

3 To log into the various websites, you need your Social Security number, and obviously a password that you can set up. For some of the sites optionally or compulsory you will also need to use a login process called France connect. Theoretically, you can use one of about half a dozen providers that they suggest to set up the France connect login, but on a process of elimination it only really works if you use one called YRIS.  All the others require either a French ID document or passport, and/or a French mobile number for validation, if you haven't got those it won't work. So if you're British and have a UK mobile number. YRIS is the only one 

4. If it helps, most browsers have a translation feature, which is quite good to translate the various websites. Not gonna try answer that for you just Google it. I use Safari and Firefox and generally read the website in French but occasionally I do translate them and the translations are pretty good.

5. I do not fully understand it, but you get an increased pension if you had children. At one point in the process, I had to provide birth certificates for all my children, even though they're grown adults. Waiting to see whether they asked me to provide certified translation of those English documents. I believe the increase is 10%, but I'm not sure exactly how it works.

6. At some point in the process, they wanted a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions confirming that I was fully covered by UK Social Security and I would not be making any claims on the French system. It was surprisingly hard to find anyone who could do this. If you need this, I can provide a redacted copy of my letter so you can track down where I got it from .

7 at some point when payment is actually being made, you will be asked to produce an annual certificate to vie.  This is a form, signed to say that you are still alive! Traditionally, this is done by the local authority/Townhall in the UK, but they have now introduced in electronic/digital version which you do by scanning in your passport, using your phone and doing a live video of your face. Massively easier. I've been doing it for several years for my mother who has a Belgian pension and it is a complete pain to go to the council.

8. Starting point is to set up logins for the various websites. Some of them seem to repeat each other, but you may need all of them.

[I tried to post in links to all the relevant websites, but I am a new member and it won't let me. Ping me a message if you want to meet send them to you directly.]

BONNE CHANCE.  i will update when I get further with the pension complementaire

update, I have got the TrustMe app to work for ID (with UK passport and mobile) now in addition to YRIS

Chablislover

Incrediblly helpful.   I am somewhat encouraged.   

jayclock

Over the last couple of weeks I have received back payments for the last 13 or 14 months  plus confirmation of the future monthly payments 


A big relief and result