New State Pension: what’s your entitlement?
Between December 2015 and May 2016 around 400,000 people accessed their State Pension statements, a 40% increase on 2015 when there were 400,000 requests in total for the entire year.
This significant increase is down to the launch of a new online system which calculates your likely State Pension entitlement based on your National Insurance records.
Previously, only people aged 50 and over could get a forecast by applying over the phone or by post to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Calculate your entitlement
To access the new online system, go to www.gov.uk/check-statepension and follow the prompts.
You’ll need to confirm your identity using the Government Gateway. The service gives you a personalised
statement showing an estimate of what you might receive once you reach State Pension age, based on your National Insurance Contributions (NICs). It’s a quick and easy way of highlighting what you’re eligible for and it can help show you how much you need to save elsewhere, as part of your retirement planning.
It is particularly helpful given the launch of the new State Pension in April 2016, which introduced a new flat rate of £155.65 (2016/17 tax year), sparking confusion amongst workers over whether they would be better or worse off under the new regime.
The new State Pension
If you’re male, born after 6 April 1951, or a woman born after 6 April 1953, you are eligible for the new State
Pension, however, you must have a minimum 10 years’ of NICs.
You need 35 years’ NI record to qualify for the full £155.65 (an increase of five years on the old entitlement) and if you’ve built up entitlement to additional State Pension under the old system, you may get more or less if you were ‘contracted out’.
The value of advice
Whatever your entitlement to the State Pension, your retirement planning is too important to ignore. We can help you assess what you might be eligible for and what you need to do to achieve a level of income in retirement that you’d be happy with.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0
