Not getting full amount of New State Pension

covid1956

UPDATE
Still waiting for a reply ho hum
Just worked out over the past few months i have contacted them by post, email and online form about 9 times in total 
Will just have to wait
COVID

Jacklob

I,m 52 and have NO plans to work to pay anymore NI contributions.  My forecast states if I pay total £4393 voluntary contributions I will get an extra £1125 per year, so after 4 years I will get my money back. My question is, is it better to pay these contributions now or wait until nearer to my state pension age which is 67. Obviously if I paid them and died before age 67 is would be a complete waste of money but I,m in good health. I have noticed that these voluntary contributions do go up each year in line with inflation (i.e. they were £800 for each year, now they are £824), wonder if its better to get them in now before they increase significantly due to high inflation??

JGB1955

Jacklob said:

 Obviously if I paid and died before age 67 is would be a complete waste of money but I,m in good health. I have noticed that these voluntary contributions do go up each year in line with inflation (i.e. they were £800 for each year, now they are £824), wonder if its better to get them in now before they increase significantly due to high inflation??

I had a similar predicament.  I paid for 2 years... then hesitated about paying more.. thinking I might not live long enough to 'gain' the system.  Still breathing at age 63 I decided to 'go for it'... if I had died before SPA I don't think it would have been at the top of my 'regrets' list.  Now 67 and 18 months into receipt of SPA I'm just thrilled to get paid, every 4 weeks, for not working!  Every month is a bonus month!

sandsy

The pensions consultancy, LCP, have just added content to their website on enhancing state pension:

https://www.lcp.uk.com/statepensionboost/

Jacklob

that was very helpful "sandsy", I,ve just been on the website and it has clarified a few things...

chateau_maison

My wife has the same problem (I'm writing because she can't face the hassle). She retired in September 2019 but the monthly amount is around £20 less than it should be. We should have detected this when the notification letter arrived in 2019 but you know how it is. Since then, we've written 3 times to the DWP Wolverhampton office. The last one was sent to be signed for on delivery but is still waiting; a depressing reflection of the state of things. A phone call in early May this year led to a returned call 28 days later informing my wife that they would be in touch in 6 months. 

My wife has 45 years of NI contributions, 41 years are full contributions and 4 are not complete. On the face of it, this is well in excess of the 35 required years. However, 10 of the 41 full years are showing national insurance credits (she was looking after our children) and the remaining 31 are showing monetary payments. My theory is that this is somehow reducing the payment since 31/35ths reduces £180 by about £20. Needless to say, there is absolutely no documentation that can be located to confirm or deny this.

This is very frustrating since if there is a shortfall, the amount owing is building up, it's approaching £3000, enough to make a difference. If there is no shortfall, the possibility that she can do something about it and enjoy a benefit is reducing.

Does anyone have any nuggets of information that might help?

Silvertabby

chateau_maison said:

My wife has the same problem (I'm writing because she can't face the hassle). She retired in September 2019 but the monthly amount is around £20 less than it should be. We should have detected this when the notification letter arrived in 2019 but you know how it is. Since then, we've written 3 times to the DWP Wolverhampton office. The last one was sent to be signed for on delivery but is still waiting; a depressing reflection of the state of things. A phone call in early May this year led to a returned call 28 days later informing my wife that they would be in touch in 6 months. 

My wife has 45 years of NI contributions, 41 years are full contributions and 4 are not complete. On the face of it, this is well in excess of the 35 required years. However, 10 of the 41 full years are showing national insurance credits (she was looking after our children) and the remaining 31 are showing monetary payments. My theory is that this is somehow reducing the payment since 31/35ths reduces £180 by about £20. Needless to say, there is absolutely no documentation that can be located to confirm or deny this.

This is very frustrating since if there is a shortfall, the amount owing is building up, it's approaching £3000, enough to make a difference. If there is no shortfall, the possibility that she can do something about it and enjoy a benefit is reducing.

Does anyone have any nuggets of information that might help?

Forget the oft quoted 35 years - that only applies to those who started work after April 2016, with the rest of us being under transitional arrangements with our own individual calculations. 

DWP don't help matters by referring to 'full NI years' when they actually mean 'financial years'.  Does your wife have a contracted out occupational pension?  If so, that will explain the difference between her actual pension and the full single tier pension, as the NI she (and her employer) paid during the time she was contracted out wasn't 'full'.

If your wife worked until she reached SPA then it may be that she can't improve her State pension, as plugging any pre 2016 gaps may not benefit her.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

My wife has 45 years of NI contributions, 41 years are full contributions and 4 are not complete. On the face of it, this is well in excess of the 35 required years

The first thing is you have a basic misunderstanding of the new State Pension.

Your wife is under transitional rules so having 35 years is irrelevant.

When she retired is probably also irrelevant.  Do you mean this when she reached State Pension age?

Do you have the full details from her State Pension forecast?

Are all the years from April 2016 to the tax year before the tax year she reached State Pension age qualifying years?

If so she may be one of the people who didn't have sufficient time from April 2016 to State Pension age to reach the standard new State Pension amount.

xylophone

She retired in September 2019 

She reached SPA in September 2019? She also retired from paid employment?

Did she obtain a state pension forecast before she reached SPA?

If so, was a Contracted Out Pension Equivalent shown?

From the information given, it seems very likely that your wife was a member of a contracted out pension scheme or schemes at some point in her working life.

Remember that "35 years" is not directly relevant to your wife's situation because as a person with a contribution record pre dating the introduction of NSP, she came under transitional rules.

On 6/4/16, two calculations were done for her in order to establish her "starting amount" for new state pension.

Old Rules

NI years/30 (max) x £119.30 (Full Basic) + (Additional State Pension -  (where applicable) Deduction for Contracting Out).

New Rules

{NI years/35 (max) x £155.65 (Full NSP)} - (where applicable) Contracted Out Pension Equivalent}.

The Starting Amount was the higher of the two.

How many NI years did your wife have at 6/4/16?

Was she paying NI post 6/4/16 and up to drawing her SP in September 2019?

chateau_maison

Thanks for all the replies.

I'll answer the various questions below.

Retirement date was 6th September 2019; this was state pension age and retirement from paid employment - date of birth March 1954. 

There were 41 years of full national insurance contribution years up to and including 2014/15 followed by 4 partial years from 2015/2016 to 2018/2019. 

The statement of details letter from August 2019 shows no contracted out element. The award amount in this letter was £147.85.