Counting National Insurance Years

DabDab

I’ve had a quick look through posts to ensure this hasn’t been covered before but apologies if it has.

I’ve recently taken voluntary early retirement aged 56 and taken my reduced final salary pension. As of now I have 40 years full national insurance years and the HMRC forecast tells me I have enough years. So, all is good I thought.

A friend tells me that he had been advised that the count of qualifying years is effectively backwards …. In other words, the years from 56-67 will effectively be gaps for me and the years at the start of my career are effectively discounted. This came as a shock to me and I can find nothing on the HMRC website to suggest that this is correct however, I would need to know now to re-evaluate my current choices.

can anyone advise whether this is correct and point me in the right direction to find out more?

thanks

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Why do you think 40 years matters?

And there is no backwards counting.

Wouldn't you be better off as ascertaining the facts by checking your personal State Pension forecast (in full) on gov.uk.

Then return with any queries if still confused.

There is a very high probability you a big winner under the new system.

Suhusa

If your forecast says 'this is the most you can get' and the list of assumptions (below the green bit with the pension amount) doesn't have a line similar to 'assumes you continue contributing another x years' then you're fine - in that case you'll have enough years and will get the full amount despite not working anymore. If you have the 'assumes you'll contribute another X years' line then your forecast would go down from year to year - because you wouldn't pay any more NI contributions, whereas the forecast takes continuing contributions into account. In that case you'd need to pay NI contributions on a year by year basis until you've got enough years. (Others are better placed to explain how many years are enough years).

What categorically does not happen is that old years are discarded bit by bit.

DabDab

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Why do you think 40 years matters?

because that’s how many years I have?

And there is no backwards counting.

Thanks. My friend is quite sure in his and is in contact with HMRC (or trying to)

Wouldn't you be better off as ascertaining the facts by checking your personal State Pension forecast (in full) on gov.uk.

I did!

Then return with any queries if still confused.

I did!

There is a very high probability you a big winner under the new system.

Can you elaborate?

Not sure why the slightly critical and aggressive response but thanks anyway.

xylophone

As of now I have 40 years full national insurance years and the HMRC forecast tells me I have enough

What exactly does it show as

Estimate to 5/4/22 (23)?

Bimbly

DabDab said:
Not sure why the slightly critical and aggressive response but thanks anyway.

It's because the same question keeps getting asked several times a day on this board and the regulars are very tired of saying the same thing over and over again.

Basically, your friend seems to have some funny ideas. Trust your National Insurance record. If still not sure, you could post it here for clarification.

By the way, I'm 54 and I've already notched up a full state pension entitlement. I can't remember how many full years I have, but as stated above, that's not really relevant.

DabDab

xylophone said:

As of now I have 40 years full national insurance years and the HMRC forecast tells me I have enough

What exactly does it show as

Estimate to 5/4/22 (23)?

It’s still 2022 and shows 40 full years in the ni record and pension page says 

Your forecast

• is not a guarantee and is based on the current law
• is based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2022
• does not include any increase due to inflation

£203.85 is the most you can get

You cannot improve your forecast any more.

molerat

That clearly shows you have reached the maximum and there is nothing more you need to do.  Your friend clearly has some strange misunderstandings of how it all works.  40 years though is not really relevant, if you have not been regularly monitoring your forecast you don't know when you reached that maximum.

DabDab

molerat said:

That clearly shows you have reached the maximum.  Your friend clearly has some strange misunderstandings of how it all works.  40 years though is not really relevant, if you have not been regularly monitoring your forecast you don't know when you reached the maximum.

Yes I know 40 years is irrelevant unless what he was saying is true, and the was backwards counting and then it is very much relevant. Thank you fall for your help.