Pensions and Benefits

State Pensions

Women are currently entitled to their state pension at 60 years of age, and men at 65 years.The Government plans to equalise the State Retirement Pension age at both 65 for men and women. As this change will not start to be phased in until 2010, women will born before April 1950 will not be affected. If you have a full National Insurance record your full basic pension will be £87.30 a week. If you have not paid the full National Insurance contributions you will get a reduced pension.

Forecast

The Pension Service currently can only respond to State Pension forecast requests from people who reach State Pension age on or before 5 April 2010. This is due to the changes to the State Pension rules that may affect your entitlement if you will reach State Pension age on or after 6 April 2010.

You can get a State Pension forecast if you:

  • will reach State Pension age on or before 5 April 2010
  • live in the UK
  • are more than 30 days away from State Pension age

If you're within four months and four days of State Pension age, you should have already received an invitation to claim through the post. If you haven't, get in touch with The Pension Service straight away. You can call The Pension Service about your State Pension on 0845 60 60 265. A textphone service is also available on 0845 60 60 285. Lines are open 8.00 am to 8.00 pm, Monday to Friday.

How to get a State Pension forecast

Online

You can get an online State Pension forecast. 

If you're already registered with another government online service for individuals you can use your existing User ID and password to 'enrol' (sign up) for the State Pension forecast service right away.

If this is the first time you've used a government online service for individuals, you need to register for a State Pension forecast online, receive a 'User ID' on-screen and then wait to receive an 'Activation PIN' (personal identity number). This is sent through the post within seven days by the Government Gateway (the central registration service for online government services). You then need to activate the service within 28 days. (Your User ID is also sent separately by post.)

Why do you need to wait for an Activation PIN?

The Activation PIN is designed to protect you by ensuring complete security of the government's online services. Because it's sent to your home address (already held on file) the government can be sure that only you can activate the account. 

To register and/or enrol for the online State Pension forecast follow either of the links below.

(Note that you only need to register for government online services for individuals once - you can then use your User ID to sign up for as many online services for individuals as you wish.)

Website: www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/pensionforecast

By phone

You can ask for a State Pension forecast by calling the State Pension Forecasting Team. They'll fill out the form for you and will send you a forecast in the post in around 15 working days.

You can call the State Pension Forecasting Team on 0845 3000 168 (textphone 0845 3000 169). Lines are open 8.00 am to 8.00 pm Monday to Friday, and 9.00 am to 1.00 pm on Saturdays.

Private Pensions - Tracing

The National Government Pension Service provides a Pension Tracing Service to help you find the contact details of a personal or company pension scheme that you've lost touch with. If you have changed jobs a number of times through your working life you may have lost contact with a previous employer and their pension scheme. The Pension Tracing Service can help you trace a pension even if you're not sure of the contact details. It has access to a database of over 200,000 occupational and personal pension schemes. This database can be used, free of charge, to search for a scheme.

The Pension Tracing Service may be able to provide you with current contact details for a pension scheme. You can then use this information to contact the pension provider and establish any pension entitlement you may have.

The more information you can give the Pension Tracing Service, the more likely you'll get an up-to-date contact address for the pension scheme you're tracing.

If you are trying to trace an occupational pension scheme, start by working out:

  • whether the employer traded under a different name
  • the type of business the employer ran
  • whether the employer changed address at any time

If you are trying to trace a personal pension scheme, start by working out:

  • the name of the personal pension scheme
  • the address where the personal pension scheme was run from
  • the name of the insurance company involved with the personal pension scheme

You can phone the Pension Tracing Service on 0845 6002 537 (textphone 0845 3000 169) or complete an online form. If you live overseas, you can call +44 (0)19 1218 2466.

 

Tax Allowances

When you reach 65 your annual personal tax allowance rises from £5,225 to £7,550 provided you not earn over £20,900. The additional tax allowance is reduced back to £5,225 as your eaning rise above this £20,900.

Winter Fuel Benefit

Aged 60 or over on or before 21 September 2008. If so you could get a Winter Fuel Payment of up to £200 to help with the winter heating costs, even if you are still working.

Winter Fuel Helpline 08459 151515

Website: www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/winterfuel

If you are aged 60 after 21 September 2008 then unfortunately you do not qualify for benefit until winter 2009.