Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Good news from the DWP

Mrs Image fell reasonably lucky with her pension ... she had a State pension age of 60 ... but her Local Government pension didn't kick in until 65 ... she decided to defer her State Pension .... in those days you got 10.4% for every year you deferred .... forward 2 years and the Council were wanting to shed management staff through redundancy.... she went for that ... because of the proximity of her retirement the Council made up the shortfall ... so she retired with her full LG Pension and a 20% uplift to her State Pension. Right place at the right time for once.

K

That was sweet - K she needs all the luck she can get living with you

Richard ... a statement she would wholeheartedly agree with 😄

K

Lets hope they don't meet up as mine would echo that statement too

Nick, quite common in the late 80's and into the 90's, sold on the basis that the insurance co's providing it would claim the 20% tax back and invest that too in your pot and it would (allegedly) grow massively over the years and be worth far more than the bit of state pension you gave up, what lot's of us didn't realise was the avaricious 'sellers' & 'providers' were skimming off management charges and basically gambling the rest on the stock market - I opted back in after around 12 years but the benefits were outweighed by the considerable cost of buying back NI years later on & I'm not at state pension age yet either

When I moved to the US I continued to make contributions to the UK State Pension to ensure I received the maximum amount, the US Social Security Administration reduce the Social Security Pension if you receive a foreign pension. When I came to claim the UK State Pension they informed me I had a full pension then told me I had a shortfall and had to make a catch up contribution. My UK State Pension combined with my reduced US Social Security Pension amounts to roughly what my full US Social Security Pension would be if I had always worked and contributed in the US which is considerably more than the maximum UK State Pension. My wife also receives a UK State Pension and half my US Social Security Pension as a spousal benefit, I learnt you have to really learn and understand the Government policies they certainly don't make it easy on both sides of the pond.

Agreed . I worked 3 1/2 years in Germany. Normally you need 5 years minimum for a pension from the BVA but they take further education into account so I get roughly 25% of the uk state pension from Germany. It gets taxed in the UK.
My wife delivered two of our children whilst living in Germany so gets a mother pension of roughly 10% of her UK state pension.

25% of a UK pension for 3 and a half year's contributions sounds a bargain!

Yes it does but they take further education from 16 into account so 5 years. Also if I lived there I would pay a big tax on it to fund old age care.

Still sounds good though, is the old age pension in Germany markedly more than ours?
I know the French do a lot better than us and retire earlier too.
I wonder how we rate in the EU league table of pensions...