State pension contribution question...

chunkylover53

Hi,

I used the gov's 'check-your-state-pension' website to check mine and my wife's pensions today. I'm 47 and she's 49.

What we can't understand is that it seems to say that I only have to pay 1 more year to receive the full state pension, whereas she needs to pay another 3 years.

Her NI contributions go back to 1985-86, 33 years with NO gaps, whereas mine goes back to 87-88, 33 years with a one year gap.

We can't understand why she's been paying longer, with no gaps, yet still needs to pay another 3 years in and I'm younger, with less payments made and pretty much finished paying once 2018-19 has been recognised in the system.

Any ideas?

Dazed_and_confused

Was she in a contracted out pension scheme longer than you, or been in one when you haven't?

You could look at the COPE amount

And before you ask, no you don't deduct any COPE amount from your current entitlement.

chunkylover53

@Dazed and Confused, brilliant thanks.

That would explain it. Her COPE is £53.85 whereas mine is £25.97 - I guess that means she was contracted out for a fair bit more than I was.

Seriously, you don't take the £53.85 figure off of the £168.60 forecast? We genuinely thought that (in her case) the state pension would be £168.60 - £53.85 = £114.75 per week. The short fall then made up by the private pension that the contracted out amounts were paid into?

So you are saying that she should get the £168.60 forecasted amount AND get her private pension payments that were accrued from the contracted out payments?

Dazed_and_confused

COPE was just used to calculate your "new" State Pension amount back in 2015.

You got the better of the amount with COPE deducted or the (State) pension you had already built up.

So in your case you probably started with your existing entitlement and have been able to increase that with each post 2015 qualifying year.

Once you hit £168.60* (or the equivalent in later tax years once any inflation increase is added in) that is it you cannot go any higher.

*£168.60 is the current value, it was £164.35 upto 05:04:2019.

So yes, you will get your State Pension and company pension. This isn't guaranteed to pay the same as the COPE value but it is very rare anyone posts on here claiming their company/occupational pension linked to the contracted out period is going to pay less than the COPE value.

The common view is that you are a winner under the new system.

If you want more detail then Royal London have a very comprehensive State Pension guide on their website.