Confused about forecast

mxh

I checked my pension forecast 18 months ago (on gov.co.uk) and it showed me my "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023" which was about £200 per week, and it then said "Forecast if you contribute another 4 years before 5 April 2033" which was the full pension amount,

As I am no longer working, I decided to pay for the 4 further years - these were paid for in Oct 2023 and soon after I could see in my NI record that those 4 extra had been allocated (to the years 2011, 12, 13 & 14). 

However the forecast still says the same as above - I waited until April 2024 in case it only updated yearly, but no, it still says "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023". Should I be expecting this to update at some point to show my new forecast? Anything I can do to get it to update? Is it stuck at this date for other people, or do others have a more recent estimate?

itsthelittlethings

When are you due to retire? Maybe keep the receipt for the extra years.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

mxh said:

I checked my pension forecast 18 months ago (on gov.co.uk) and it showed me my "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023" which was about £200 per week, and it then said "Forecast if you contribute another 4 years before 5 April 2033" which was the full pension amount,

As I am no longer working, I decided to pay for the 4 further years - these were paid for in Oct 2023 and soon after I could see in my NI record that those 4 extra had been allocated (to the years 2011, 12, 13 & 14). 

However the forecast still says the same as above - I waited until April 2024 in case it only updated yearly, but no, it still says "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023". Should I be expecting this to update at some point to show my new forecast? Anything I can do to get it to update? Is it stuck at this date for other people, or do others have a more recent estimate?

I suspect that that is your problem.

Did you check with Future Pension Centre that purchasing pre 2016 years would be of any benefit?  Just because a year is available to purchase doesn't mean it will always improve your forecast.

Post 2016 years should do but pre 2016 years can often be a waste of money.  

How many pre 2016 years did you have before buying those 4?

How many post 2016 years are available for you to purchase?

molerat

As above, filling post 2016 gaps will always add to the pension amount, pre 2016 gaps need to be treated with extreme caution.  How did you pay ?  Did you take advice from TPS (not HMRC as they know nothing of how paying years will affect your pension, they are merely tax collectors) ?  Did you specify those years to fill ?   If it was purely your choice you will need to grovel cap in hand to HMRC and ask them to re-allocate the payments to post 2016 gaps.

mxh

Sorry for the delayed response.

I appreciate the comments about pre / post 2016, and it may well be an issue. But until the forecast updates itself to show me the current status, or at least a status AFTER I paid the extra, then I don't actually know whether I'm in line for a full pension or not.

I mean, even if I did get HMRC to reallocate the payments to post 2016, I wouldn't know if it made any difference if it still shows ""Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023""

So before worrying about where the payments made were allocated, how do I go about getting a current status?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

mxh said:

Sorry for the delayed response.

I appreciate the comments about pre / post 2016, and it may well be an issue. But until the forecast updates itself to show me the current status, or at least a status AFTER I paid the extra, then I don't actually know whether I'm in line for a full pension or not.

I mean, even if I did get HMRC to reallocate the payments to post 2016, I wouldn't know if it made any difference if it still shows ""Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023""

So before worrying about where the payments made were allocated, how do I go about getting a current status?

Why do you think it hasn't been "updated" to reflect the contributions you have paid 🤔

As previously explained, from what you have posted purchasing pre 2016 years will not benefit you from a State Pension perspective so if your forecast before paying showed you had already accrued "about £200" then your for forecast after those contributions had been allocated would show you had already accrued "about £200" as well.

If you had purchased 4 post 2016 years then your forecast would show you had now accrued £221.20*

*I am assuming that your "about £200" was at least £195.92

Before doing anything else I would suggest a conversation with Future Pension Centre is the best way forward.

molerat

If the years purchased are showing as full in your NI record then your forecast will have updated to show the effect on your pension within a matter of hours.  If it has stayed the same then those years, as explained, have not added to your pension and you need to get them reallocated.

mxh

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Why do you think it hasn't been "updated" to reflect the contributions you have paid 

Because the forecast says "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023".

Payments were made in October 2023 and we're now in November 2024. To know definitively whether those payments have or have not affected the estimate, logically I need an estimate from post October 2023.

molerat said:

If the years purchased are showing as full in your NI record then your forecast will have updated to show the effect on your pension within a matter of hours.  If it has stayed the same then those years, as explained, have not added to your pension and you need to get them reallocated.

OK, I see what you're saying.

But by that logic, the forecast on the gov.uk website page, before I made any payments, should have said something like "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to <last time I paid NI>". Which was 2010. 

But it didn't, it said  "Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2023". What caused it to decide to update at that point, when nothing had changed?

I'm not disputing that maybe you're right about the pre/post 2016 issue - but I don't KNOW that that is correct, because I don't have a forecast that tells me the current situation, post my making extra payments.

molerat

The "up to 5 April 2023" only relates to your NI history shown, it is not when it was last updated. You will see 23/24 will not be showing as filled nor will it show a price to fill it, once 23/24 is reconciled that statement will change to "up to 5 April 2024".  Your pension forecast always shows the current value using all filled years and will be updated pretty much instantly on a change in the NI record.

mxh

molerat said:

The "up to 5 April 2023" only relates to your NI history shown, it is not when it was last updated. You will see 23/24 will not be showing as filled nor will it show a price to fill it, once 23/24 is reconciled that statement will change to "up to 5 April 2024".  Your pension forecast always shows the current value using all filled years and will be updated pretty much instantly on a change in the NI record.

I started this process sometime in May 2023?  I took a screenshot of the 'Estimate' page which even at that time showed "up to 5 April 2023". Which suggests they managed to reconcile the 22/23 in about a month.

So my assumption (yes, I know about assumptions!) was, when it hadn't updated after my Oct 23 payments, that maybe it was only updated yearly.

But here we are 18 months later and still it's not updated. I appreciate your responses, and they make logical sense - but I'm just not seeing it happening.

A bit of a rhetorical question, as I can't expect you to know, but why would it take only 1 month to reconcile 22/23, but 6 months+ for 23/24?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

mxh said:

molerat said:

The "up to 5 April 2023" only relates to your NI history shown, it is not when it was last updated. You will see 23/24 will not be showing as filled nor will it show a price to fill it, once 23/24 is reconciled that statement will change to "up to 5 April 2024".  Your pension forecast always shows the current value using all filled years and will be updated pretty much instantly on a change in the NI record.

I started this process sometime in May 2023?  I took a screenshot of the 'Estimate' page which even at that time showed "up to 5 April 2023". Which suggests they managed to reconcile the 22/23 in about a month.

So my assumption (yes, I know about assumptions!) was, when it hadn't updated after my Oct 23 payments, that maybe it was only updated yearly.

But here we are 18 months later and still it's not updated. I appreciate your responses, and they make logical sense - but I'm just not seeing it happening.

A bit of a rhetorical question, as I can't expect you to know, but why would it take only 1 month to reconcile 22/23, but 6 months+ for 23/24?

I think you're missing the point here.

You previously said this,

these were paid for in Oct 2023 and soon after I could see in my NI record that those 4 extra had been allocated (to the years 2011, 12, 13 & 14). 

So it will have been "updated".  It's just that the years you have paid for not, being pre 2016 years, have not added anything to your State Pension so the updated position is identical to what it was before you bought those 4 years.

At some point in the future it will be updated to 5 April 2024 but as 2023-24 isn't a qualifying year for you the amount of State Pension accrued will not change.

I'm not sure anyone here can make this any clearer really, your best course of action is to try and see if the money you have spent on buying 4 pointless years (from a State Pension perspective) can be reallocated towards 4 post 2016 years.  Which, from what you have posted, will improve your accrued State Pension.