Check your National Insurance record
As many of you may already know, it is important to check your National Insurance record in order to make sure you have enough qualifying years to receive the full state pension. The maximum state pension amount is currently £185.15 per week, but this amount is not guaranteed and will depend on how many qualifying years you have, or how many NI credits.
Most will be required to have 35 full qualifying years, however it’s slightly more complicated if you started your NI contributions before 2016 as this will depend on your age and your NI record up to now. Some could potentially need to contribute for more than 40 years. This is why it is important that every individual checks their own record as soon as possible.
How to check
You can check your State Pension forecast on the Gov.uk website by clicking on the link below, then select ‘Start Now’ (green box):
https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension
If you already have a personal government gateway you’ll just need to sign in and it will display your pension forecast based on your up to date contributions. However, if you do not have government gateway login details you will need to create some login details first, by clicking on ‘Create sign in details’ which is just below the ‘Sign in’ box. It is likely that you will need your passport, driving licence details and NI number in order to verify who you are, as part of setting up the government gateway. Once registered, please click on the above link to view your State Pension forecast.
If you do not have a full State Pension forecast you can view your National Insurance record in full by clicking on the link which says ‘View your National Insurance record’. This will provide you with an annual list of credits and will display the year which do not qualify.
What to do if you have gaps in your record
You can buy NI credits to fill the gaps and increase your State Pension forecast. Normally you can only go back 6 tax years, however until 31/07/2023 you’ll be able to go back as far as 2006 to fill any gaps as required. Therefore, you need to make a decision as to whether you want to top-up before 31/07/2023, otherwise the maximum number of years you can ‘buy’ is for the 6 previous tax years.
The cost of buying NI credits will depend on your personal situation i.e. whether you were employed or self-employed during the gap years, and whether you are topping up a partial year.
Do not make any payments until you have contacted the government’s Future Pension Centre to find out whether it is worth making additional contributions to fill in the gaps, otherwise you may end up paying additional contributions and see no increase in your State Pension. They can be contacted on:
https://www.gov.uk/future-pension-centre
Telephone: 0800 731 0175
Telephone from outside the UK: +44 (0)191 218 3600
Welsh language telephone: 0800 731 0175
You can also write to:
The Pension Service 9
Mail Handling Site A
Wolverhampton
WV98 1LU
Check to see if you can fill in gap years for free
There are a number of situations where you can gain an NI credit without having to make any voluntary contributions, these include years where any of the following applied:
- Statutory sick pay meant that your earnings were too low
- Statutory maternity, paternity or adoption pay
- You were unemployed but actively looking for work
- Employment and support allowance – You were eligible for it but not claiming it
- You were caring for a family member: As long as you were between 16 and state pension age, and the family member was under 12 and not your child
- You were caring for a sick or disabled person for at least 20 hours a week
- You were on jury service
- You were a foster carer (after 06/04/2010)
- You were on a Government-approved training course
Please see the Gov.uk website (link below) for information on how to claim these credits.
https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance-credits/eligibility
Please contact our office if you require any additional information in relation to this matter.