Poor pension advice

Soozegirl

Hi - my question is (I think) fairly simple.  I am a teacher paying into the teachers' pension fund.  When I went part time, I enquired as to whether it would be possible for me to pay into the pension at a full time person's rate (or similar) because I was lucky and could afford to do so.  The advice was NO.  I was told it was not worth it as the teachers' pension scheme was not good and I would be wasting my money.  14 years later, I am here and now looking more carefully into my retirement and finances and believe that this was pretty rubbish advice!  I should absolutely have paid more into the scheme, but took the advice of the person who I believed knew better than me.  Is there anything I can do?  I now feel absolutely sick that I took the advice and have left myself so much worse off because of it.

Kynthia

Who advised you and is giving advice part of their job or was it their opinion?

Are you certain you could even have been allowed to pay membership as a full time member of staff when part time as I'm fairly sure you can't do that in any public sector DB pension I've been a member of (I've not been in the TPS)?

You could have probably bought additional pension or started AVCs but they would be different to your main pension contributions as they don't have the employer's contribution included.

Thrugelmir

Soozegirl said:

  When I went part time, I enquired as to whether it would be possible for me to pay into the pension at a full time person's rate (or similar) because I was lucky and could afford to do so.  The advice was NO. 

That's correct. The employer would also be liable for a 20% plus contribution. 

Buying additional pension is another matter altogether. Has always been available as an option. 

Soozegirl

Ok I think I understand.  He was a member of the Government pension giving me advice about my pension and I was asking how I could boost it.  I was open to doing that in any appropriate way, but his advice was not to bother.  I admit I’m a bit naive about this sort of thing but think I could have bought more years?  Again, was not advised about that.  I am now 55 and probably not going back into teaching as now looking after my elderly mother in law full time.  

Marcon

Soozegirl said:

Ok I think I understand.  He was a member of the Government pension giving me advice about my pension and I was asking how I could boost it.  I was open to doing that in any appropriate way, but his advice was not to bother.  I admit I’m a bit naive about this sort of thing but think I could have bought more years?  Again, was not advised about that.  I am now 55 and probably not going back into teaching as now looking after my elderly mother in law full time.  

Unless he was a regulated adviser giving you formal regulated advice (doesn't sound like it), you have no comeback. I'm afraid that's one of the pitfalls of listening to people who don't know what they are talking about, but claim they do... Anyone who describes the TPS as 'not good' certainly doesn't understand it.

dunstonh

 He was a member of the Government pension giving me advice about my pension and I was asking how I could boost it.  I was open to doing that in any appropriate way, but his advice was not to bother. 

Unless you speak to an adviser, you don't get advice.   Anyone who is not an adviser is giving you an opinion, comment or discussion.   Unfortunately, a lot of the public sector have people working in them who think the pensions are not worth it.   Despite being some of the best pensions around and no alternative will come close to beating them on a £ for £ basis.

The government-backed pension schemes have various ways to top up your provision.  AVCs, additional pension benefits and they buying of added years.     Some of the options that were available in the past are no longer available (or vice versa).  Some of the options are not as good as retail individual plans whilst some of them were/are very good.  Some options are unsuitable for certain objectives and better alternatives may exist for those objectives.