NHS Pensions/ Military

badger1282

Can anyone help !! .. I joined the NHS 24 years ago and hoping to retire next year .. I served in military before hand for 10 years , my query is that I was never given any pension advice about transferring military pension to NHS .. there are literally dozens of staff that I know of in the same situation . Can anything be done ? 

JoeCrystal

Too late anyway, the time period is within a year of starting a NHS job.

SVaz

Who would / should have given this ‘advice’ ?
I left the RAF in 1996,  it was well known you could transfer your military pension to NHS / Police etc. 
Surely it was your reponsibility to look into it when you joined the NHS scheme?  

molerat

badger1282 said:

............ I served in military before hand for 10 years , my query is that I was never given any pension advice about transferring military pension to NHS .........

"Advice" is generally not something that is given, it is sought out and usually paid for.  There is no one that is responsible for giving advice, the information you needed was freely available in the various publications made available to you at the time you left service.  I am also certain that the NHS pension documents you received on starting would have had information about transferring in existing pensions.

Silvertabby

The good news is that as you would have been in AFPS75 your military pension/tax free lump sum is payable in full from age 60, even if you continue to work in the NHS.

Note you will have to claim it - AFPS won't come looking for you.  And, yes, as molerat says - you would have been issued with a pensions information pack when you left the military, and your NHS joining forms would have asked for details of any previous pensions that you may have wished to transfer in.  Too late to do anything about it now.

r6mile

Out of interest, what would have been the benefit for the OP in transferring his army pension into his NHS one? 

xylophone

Many years ago when I left one employer with a DB scheme for  another employer with a DB scheme, the administrator of the new scheme did ask me whether I wished to transfer  in from my old scheme - I took up the offer.

Silvertabby

r6mile said:

Out of interest, what would have been the benefit for the OP in transferring his army pension into his NHS one? 

It would have been a 'club' transfer, so the factors used would have made it as much of a 'like for like' as possible.  Of course, what couldn't be factored in would the the scenario that the transferee would have gone on to leave final salary part of the second scheme on a much higher salary than had the old scheme been deferred and only increased in value in line with inflation.

In OP's case, this boat has long sailed, so no point in playing the 'what if' game 

With 20 years as a LGPS administrator under my belt, I wish I had a tenner for every time someone has said to me "but I didn't know - we weren't told - why weren't we told" when what they actually meant was " yes, I got the paperwork but couldn't be *rsed to read it" or, " who bothers reading about boring pensions".  

Sorry if that sounds harsh, OP, but used to get quite a bee in my bonnet about this!

GrubbyGirl_2

Silvertabby said:

With 20 years as a LGPS administrator under my belt, I wish I had a tenner for every time someone has said to me "but I didn't know - we weren't told - why weren't we told" when what they actually meant was " yes, I got the paperwork but couldn't be *rsed to read it" or, " who bothers reading about boring pensions".  

Sorry if that sounds harsh, OP, but used to get quite a bee in my bonnet about this!

I couldn't agree more and exactly why the WASPI women drive me nuts and I say that as someone who falls into the WASPI age group

Silvertabby

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

Silvertabby said:

With 20 years as a LGPS administrator under my belt, I wish I had a tenner for every time someone has said to me "but I didn't know - we weren't told - why weren't we told" when what they actually meant was " yes, I got the paperwork but couldn't be *rsed to read it" or, " who bothers reading about boring pensions".  

Sorry if that sounds harsh, OP, but used to get quite a bee in my bonnet about this!

I couldn't agree more and exactly why the WASPI women drive me nuts and I say that as someone who falls into the WASPI age group

Ditto.  funny old thing, but people don't seem to 'miss' seeing pensions information when they think that it may be to their benefit.  After the 'Pensions Freedoms' were announced we (LGPS) were swamped with calls from LGPS pension fund members (both current and deferred) who had 'read all about it' and had convinced themselves that the new rules meant that they could transfer 'their' pension money straight to their bank accounts.  Even after explaining that the new rules only applied to DC pensions, not DB pensions, some people still wouldn't let go of their own interpretation of the tabloid reports.  

I think that by the time they rang us, many had mentally already spent their 'windfalls' so that led to some quite difficult conversations.....

NoMore

Silvertabby said:

I think that by the time they rang us, many had mentally already spent their 'windfalls' so that led to some quite difficult conversations.....

I bet, even worse, some had already spent it in reality! Now with big credit card bills to pay!