Missing NI years and the Protected Payment - just reviewing...

EnglishBob

My wife and I are both retired, and I'm reviewing our State Pension entitlements because of the looming deadline for paying for missing National Insurance years.

She has payable gaps shown in her online account (although not all years are detailed there) but she is receiving the full pension thanks to voluntary payments when she was working, and credits from being a carer for family members.

Although the GovDotUK site offers to let her pay for more missing years, my understanding is that there's no point. Full pension means what it says and there's no way to boost it further - nor is there a penalty attached to leaving gaps unpaid. My State Pension includes a protected payment, but I believe there's no way for her to qualify for that after the fact without a time machine; and if we did have one of those there'd be better ways to boost our wealth.

If I misunderstood any of that please put me straight!

QrizB

EnglishBob said:

Although the GovDotUK site offers to let her pay for more missing years, my understanding is that there's no point. Full pension means what it says and there's no way to boost it further - nor is there a penalty attached to leaving gaps unpaid.

Correct.

EnglishBob said:

My State Pension includes a protected payment, but I believe there's no way for her to qualify for that after the fact without a time machine; and if we did have one of those there'd be better ways to boost our wealth.

Also correct.

In order to get a protected payment like yours your wife would not only have to go back in time, she'd have to contract back in to SERPS / S2P which would boost her state pension but also make her occupational pension smaller. She's likely to be ahead on the deal as it is, making these changes would probably leave her worse off overall.