InVinoVeritas

I think you had to "contract out" if you belonged to a company pension scheme. For most of my employment I avoided joining a company pension scheme, contributing to my own Private Pension Plan and hence "contracted in" to SERPS. A friend of mine is getting £250 per week for the same reason, although he retired about 5 years ago - I had thought I would get about the same when I retire next year, but it appears not.

InVinoVeritas

I worked a couple of years for the civil service but I seem to remember getting my superannuation refunded.

quiltman

I started as a student engineer with one of the 'leccy boards. From 18yrs old we paid into superann. I left just after finishing my apprenticeship and got back all my superann as i had not been in the scheme for 5 years. Paid the deposit on our first house! then I worked for a company for 10years , paying into the company pension but when I left, it was converted into a "paid up" pension as i'de been there more than 5 years. Only worth £800 a year but not to be sneezed at as I had not paid into it for over 30 years!

mikemike

I downloaded the form needed to get more info on top ups for expats. I filled it in signed it etc. Sent a copy of my passport and a covering letter, in the first week of December. I have not yet had a response or an acknowledgement. I did request an e-mail to confirm receipt of my request, nothing!!

Anyone gone through the postal system and can share their experience regarding timelines?

Thanks

Bealinehx

I suggest you telephone DWP at +44 191 21 87777.

expatuk2017

Yes £58.00 a week i lose because of my private pension, due to my being contracted
In the 70s while working for a Paper company in Kent which was bought by the management.i get 2 pensions from insurance companys, which overall makesa loss of £1230.00 a year

quiltman

Yes, that's what I had to choose. The company I was then working for set up a company scheme and we had to choose whether to join or stay in SERPS. Our actuaries did a calculation for each employee, based on their age, future contributions and using the then "official" figures for pension fund growth came up with an individual recommendation. Due to my age then , 47 I think, my illustration showed very little difference so I elected to stay in SERPS. So glad I did! Returns on annuities went down quite drastically and the upshot is that my SERPS pays out more than the basic pension , but I would have got quite a lot less if I'd joined the company scheme. OK if I was 27 then it probably would have been worth contracting out.

Stokkevn

I am so glad I do not have any UK pension systems, it sounds so complicated.

quiltman

Well, I suppose it seems so. However, the government had started SERPS to allow folks to build up an additional pension on top of the rubbishy State Pension.(Remember, when it started, many people did not have access to a company pension scheme as most small/medium size companies could not afford to set one up.) What happened was that they realised after a few years that the SERPS scheme was going to be paying out a phenomenal amount in the future ( due to index linking) and would likely be unaffordable for the government. So they came up with the idea that if a company set up a scheme, or already had one, then by giving tax breaks like reduced National Insurance contributions to both the company and the employee, more folk would join especially as at that time the annual growth predictions for pension funds were , IIRC , 3% 5% or 8%. Of course the private pension providers nearly all used the 8% in their quotes! Based on these figures, it made sense for younger employees to opt out of SERPS. Great in theory , but in practice, pension funds rarely grew at the projected rates and annuity payouts dropped drastically! Over the long term - 20/30 years then , yes, they may still have paid out more than SERPS. As an example, my largest private pension scheme was paying 9% two years before I retired. I got 7.5% when I bought an annuity and 3 years later, the same company was only paying, I think 4.8%! so for a pension fund of say, £100,000 , the returns were £9000 , £7500 or £4800 , depending on when you cashed it in!

mikemike

Well it has taken 6 moths to get two responses.

The first a hard copy, did not even look at my request for back dating my payments, just gave forward guidance that I had X number of years to pay until age 66 etc.

The e-mail response was much more helpful. Yet, confusing as I was under the impression that I had to pay the current year before back dating 6 years. Looks like I can pay more which I do not intend to do as it means I will have paid more than 35 years contributions for no additional benefit. I have sent a clarification e-mail asking them to include this new financial year as their response was not quick enough to complete for the last financial year.

I will share the answer below. In addition I have a new URL showing methods of payment which now appear to have been updated further.

Serge, at BPI has confirmed that they will respond to an request from the pensions department to make a payment!! The pension account is shown to be in my name and the BPI have a copy of my NI which confirms this status.

I will just await the final confirmation/figures from the pensions department.



''I have enclosed details of how you can pay arrears of National Insurance.





URL ''INS13 Paying National Insurance contributions from abroad''



The amounts payable are set out below.

Tax year Number & rate of contributions Amount Payment date without penalty Final time limit
2006-2007 52 @ £13.25 £689.00 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2007-2008 52 @ £13.25 £689.00 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2008-2009 52 @ £13.25 £689.00 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2009-2010 52 @ £13.25 £689.00 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2010-2011 52 @ £12.05 £626.60 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2011-2012 52 @ £12.60 £655.20 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2012-2013 52 @ £13.25 £689.00 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2013-2014 52 @ £13.55 £704.60 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2014-2015 52 @ £13.90 £722.80 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2015-2016 52 @ £14.10 £733.20 5 April 2019 5 April 2023
2016-2017 52 @ £14.10 £733.20 5 April 2019 5 April 2023''

Stokkevn

Have you looked at the cost vs return. I investigated voluntary NI payments quite a few years ago and it came to less return that the average of my investment returns over nearly 30 years of 5.4% pa, assuming I lived to the average age. Break even point was if I died when 3.2 years older than the average, which with my life style at that time, I was unlikely to achieve. Pension system has changed a lot since then, so now maybe now worth the input.

Above, assuming your payment date was the day before you received your pension, investment at 5.4% plus 14 year capital draw down would give you an additional £66 a month, not too sure how much your pension would go up by.

mikemike

Not just pension years it also buys more widows and orphans years.

A far as guarantees go it is probably securely under written unlike private arrangements.

The contributions will buy 660pa for a for a 6400 payment. I am not good so will not die young. If I placed 6400 into another style of unsecured investment would I get close to 10% return free of tax and with probably nil risk unless Uk gov goes toes up.

I calculate that a full Uk pension plus occupational pension is worth about £1500pm without having to resort to investment income or capital drawdown.

Also means that the lovely asawa cannot spend it now)

As far as technicals go, there payment schedule suggest that more than current year plus 6 backdated years can be payable. Not much point on overpaying the max of 35 years if there is not added benefit. I have written and asked for clarification on this point. Also the deadline date of 2023 which is well short of my state pension age suggests that this needs to be given attention, sooner rather than later.

mikemike

My calculations need a 5 year old to test and correct them!!

The increased benefit is 55£ pw, not per month, or 2400 pa for a payment of under 6500£, So not turning my toes up for 2.5years of pension payments will cover the back dated contributions

Stokkevn

£55pw or £2860 pa increase is a lot more generous than the increase I was shown a few years ago when I looked into it. Might re-investigate .

mikemike

You can use the table I supplied for the last 11 missing years, as this will be the same for all. I used the last 9 years assuming it is a count back process and not a carry forward process which would be cheaper still.

As it is a 35 year maximum count you do not want to add more than the max to take you to 35.

I also like the way the annual increases are under the ''triple lock'' method. This may of course change but at the moment well worthwhile as interest rates are so low. Not to mention that once payable, the same system is applied to the annual increase as the Philippines is one of the countries that has the agreed system. Once again, that may or may not change.