SP forecast question re COPE

ratechaser

I still maintain that the forecast page could be clearer on the whole COPE thing. Basically it's trying to say that you will/can get XX in state pension, but because you were contracted out for a period, here's another totally separate chunk (COPE) that you should have accrued somehow, somewhere, in another pension scheme.

But we as the government aren't telling you any more, that's for you to figure out...

handful

ratechaser said:

I still maintain that the forecast page could be clearer on the whole COPE thing. Basically it's trying to say that you will/can get XX in state pension, but because you were contracted out for a period, here's another totally separate chunk (COPE) that you should have accrued somehow, somewhere, in another pension scheme.

But we as the government aren't telling you any more, that's for you to figure out...

That's kind of where I am to be honest. I guess my first port of call is my DB scheme but I was definitely contracted out before that. I assume that whatever benefit I might have gained from those contributions would have been in the transfer value when I moved it to another pension plan?

georgehere

As stated in the thread, the COPE is a theoretical amount - HMRC say that their assumptions show that your contracted out NI payments should have amounted and grown to a sum that will generate  £56 a week. That must be a chunk of change accumulated to generate that amount weekly - so worth putting in the effort to track it all down.

One way or another, it seems you paid contracted out amounts into several schemes. I suspect that unless you remember specifically making a transfer arrangement, the one before the DB scheme is still out there somewhere sitting with a pension provider. It may not even be with the original provider as over time many smaller providers have been bought by the bigger companies.

If you kept all your old P60s, they show the amount of your NI contributions paid into contracted out schemes, so this can nail down which years apply and how much.

However even better, HMRC can tell you what years you were contracted out AND the amounts paid AND to what scheme (they have the data which of course they used to calculate your theoretical COPE). Once you know where it went, track down the scheme administrator and go from there.