gaps in my national insurance records due to living in Europe

woolly_wombat

Early_Retire_Free said:

My understanding is that, if you have the full qualifying years when looking at your time in the UK and overseas, there is no point paying in any additional voluntary contributions.

 

Not at all!

You could have been paying cheap Class 2 NICs whilst working overseas, the best way to “double bubble” as per nigelbb’s post:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78238587#Comment_78238587

Voluntary Class 3 NICs could still be an excellent way to top up to full new post-2016 ‘flat rate’ index-linked/triple-locked UK State Pension.

Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

🐴🐴🐴🐴

bostonerimus

Early_Retire_Free said:

I am in this situation and have around 19 qualifying years in uk and a similar number in Germany.

What should happen when you retire is that the UK pension service will contact the overseas authorities to check whether you have qualifying contributions in that country.  You should then receive a pension equivalent to the highest available when combining your uk and overseas contributions i.e. in my case, the German contributions will take priority as the state pension there is higher than the UK pension.

https://www.rights4seniors.net/content/working-abroad

In any event you should contact the dutch authorities to make sure they have a record of your contributions.

My understanding is that, if you have the full qualifying years when looking at your time in the UK and overseas, there is no point paying in any additional voluntary contributions.

 

Payments made in another country can be used to make you eligible for benefits in another ie by applying them against the minimum number of contributions necessary to qualify for benefits. However, they won't be used to calculate the level of that benefit. So there is definitely a point to paying extra voluntary NI contributions as they might increase you UK state pension and if they are Class 2 they are ridiculously inexpensive.

nigelbb

Early_Retire_Free said:

I am in this situation and have around 19 qualifying years in uk and a similar number in Germany.

What should happen when you retire is that the UK pension service will contact the overseas authorities to check whether you have qualifying contributions in that country.  You should then receive a pension equivalent to the highest available when combining your uk and overseas contributions i.e. in my case, the German contributions will take priority as the state pension there is higher than the UK pension.

https://www.rights4seniors.net/content/working-abroad

In any event you should contact the dutch authorities to make sure they have a record of your contributions.

My understanding is that, if you have the full qualifying years when looking at your time in the UK and overseas, there is no point paying in any additional voluntary contributions.

 

I was just about to do a point by point refutation of the inaccuracies & bad advice in this post & the website linked to but I see that others have beaten me to it.

Short of buying a winning lottery ticket paying voluntary National Insurance contributions to maximise your UK state pensions is the best investment you will ever make.

bostonerimus

nigelbb said:

Early_Retire_Free said:

I am in this situation and have around 19 qualifying years in uk and a similar number in Germany.

What should happen when you retire is that the UK pension service will contact the overseas authorities to check whether you have qualifying contributions in that country.  You should then receive a pension equivalent to the highest available when combining your uk and overseas contributions i.e. in my case, the German contributions will take priority as the state pension there is higher than the UK pension.

https://www.rights4seniors.net/content/working-abroad

In any event you should contact the dutch authorities to make sure they have a record of your contributions.

My understanding is that, if you have the full qualifying years when looking at your time in the UK and overseas, there is no point paying in any additional voluntary contributions.

 

I was just about to do a point by point refutation of the inaccuracies & bad advice in this post & the website linked to but I see that others have beaten me to it.

Short of buying a winning lottery ticket paying voluntary National Insurance contributions to maximise your UK state pensions the best investment you will ever make.

I estimate I've paid between £5k and £6k in mostly voluntary Class 2 NI since the late 80s to qualify for full state pension...definitely the best financial return I've ever had.

Early_Retire_Free

Seems what I said was based on out of date information.

I followed up with the UK pensions authorities and was able to backdate my class 2 contributions to 2005/6.  Total cost was around £2,300 and I added 14 years to my uk pension entitlement....which others have said, seems like a pretty good investment to me.

Thanks to those who steered me in the right direction!

nigelbb

Early_Retire_Free said:

Seems what I said was based on out of date information.

I followed up with the UK pensions authorities and was able to backdate my class 2 contributions to 2005/6.  Total cost was around £2,300 and I added 14 years to my uk pension entitlement....which others have said, seems like a pretty good investment to me.

Thanks to those who steered me in the right direction!

Thanks for the update & good to know that you took our advice to get the extra pension.😀