Spouse NI credits towards pension while overseas?

A question about : Spouse NI credits towards pension while overseas?

I am a former UK civil servant, now retired. I worked overseas for a significant part of my career (some 18 out of 33 years) but throughout was regarded as UK resident, paid in sterling and taxed in the UK. I have a full NI contributions record, which I believe entitles me to a full state pension from age 65.

My question relates to my wife (born in 1951). She has only a few years' of NI contributions - from limited periods of employment in UK. For the 18 years accompanying me overseas on government service, she had no earnings and paid no NI contributions. She has reached her state-retirement age (in 2013) but has had no communication from the Pensions Service. We are now seeking a statement of her NI record. Can any forum reader with detailed knowledge of the NI and pensions rules advise on any of the following:

i) does she qualify for NI credit for any/all of the years spent as an accompanying spouse overseas - on the same basis as, we understand, the spouses of members of the UK armed forces assigned overseas? If so, how should she claim this?
ii) does she - or would she have - qualified for Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) for any or all of those years? Is this explicitly linked to having children or receiving Child Allowance (we have none/did not)? Again, how would she claim?
iii) depending on the answers to either or both of those questions, can she now make any voluntary NI contributions to buy additional years of NI credit and thus increase her state pension - and if so, for how many years?
iv) independently from her own NI record and the queries above, would she be eligible for state pension on the basis of my (her husband's) NI record?

Any information or advice would be welcome.

Best answers:

• When do you expect to become eligible for your own state pension (before or after 6/4/16)?
• ii) Yes you need to be receiving Child Benefit or Carer's Allowance to receive Home Responsibilities protection. It's recently changed to only apply to CB for children under 12 and CA.
  The best idea is for your wife to ask for a pension forecast:
  https://www.gov.uk/future-pension-centre
  She can then decide whether to make contributions for additional years. Here's some information about topping up, that should apply to your wife:
  https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-topup
• If you become eligible for your state pension before 6/4/16 see
  https://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN....pdf?dtrk=true
  page 8 concerning category B pension.
  If on or after 6/4/16 see https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...ntitlement.pdf
• Spouses / civil partners of Armed Forces members have only received an NI credit since 2010. The documents concerned with its introduction makes no reference to other civil or crown servants.
• Thanks to all for replies. I qualify for my state pension in early 2015 (ie before the change in rules).
  The situation regarding my wife seems to be almost a Catch-22 - or at least somewhat complicated. It seems she can't get a pension forecast, because - having had no notification from the Pensions Service before or at the time - she has already passed the date (May 2013) on which she should have started getting her state pension, or at least been eligible for it. The Pension Service have now advised, in answer to a phone call, that she would have to claim her pension in order to know what she qualified for (which seems a bit back-to-front!).
  I have looked at various guidance leaflets and websites, but haven't yet cracked it. It seems that we need to clarify three things:
  a) first, the basic facts: what is her current NI record - ie how many years contribs has she already got?
  b) depending on that, can she - at this stage - "buy" additional years at the voluntary rate to boost her pension?
  c) If she is allowed to, should she do so? Or not bother because she will qualify for a pension in any case on the back of my (full, 42 years) NI contribs record?
  d) however, if she qualifies on the basis of my NI record for a "spouse-pension" at less than the full rate, can she top that up on the basis of her own NI record (either as it stands or with the purchase of some added years)?
  That seems to me the logical way to approach things. I'm puzzled as to why (because she is already past her designated state retirement age) she has to claim her pension before the DWP will tell her the answers to these questions.
• Based on your contributions she will get a category B pension, equivalent to 60% of the full basic pension when you reach retirement age.
  Your wife should have claimed her pension on her own contributions when she reached retirement age. Currently the de minimus level is only one year of contributions for a 1/30 pension. This could then be deferred if you didn't need it. As it wasn't claimed, it will be treated as deferred.
  Your wife's contributions do not top up the category B pension but would replace it if they resulted in a bigger pension. So she would need more than 18 years of contributions before her category A pension would be worth more.
• She can contact the claims people and tell them that initially she only wants a statement of her entitlement and how many years counted.
  She may have the option to buy many more years of past contributions.. Potentially for all years from 2006, up to 7 years in her case, depending on her exact age. Seek confirmation that the deferral boost will apply to purchased years, I think it will, but verify.
  The question will be whether that plus the gain for deferring takes her above the value of 60% of what your record would entitle her to. No way to know that without more details of her record. Of course the gain over the 60% would need to be sufficient to justify the cost of getting there.
• Thanks to all three posters above for replies. First, to JezR for explaining the difference between Cat B pension (60% of mine) vs Cat A (her own, which would only be greater if she had paid more than 18 yrs NI).
  mgdavid - thanks, we have just submitted an online request for her NI record, which will set the baseline for any other choices or decisions.
  That will help us to answer jamesd's point - whether it will be worth her paying additional voluntary contribs. Seems it will only be worth doing so if it boosts her own (Cat A) pension entitlement to a greater amount than the 60% she gets as a Cat B pension on the back of my NI record.
  A quick scan of the DWP guidance seems to suggest that (a) she may have scope anyway to make up the last 6 years of NI on a voluntary basis, and that (b) she may be able to buy more years to fill gaps since 1975, but only if she already has 20 years of contributions. Our suspicion is however that (not having got any NI credits for Child Benefit or HRP - which we did not receive as we were abroad with no kids/dependents) her actual years of UK employment and normal NI contribs may only add up to less than 10. If that turns out to be so, then I suspect there is no way she can make up enough to deliver a pension greater than the 60% Cat B amount derived from my NI record. But we'll have to see when the statement of her NI record comes through.
  Watch this space!
• There is another thing that could be done to boost her own pension and that would be to pay category 3a voluntary contributions. These could top up a category B pension by up to Ј25 a week when available in 2015.
  They will work out significantly more expensive than what she would have received with a regular contribution had this been made in the past, but may still be worth considering if in good health. Details at: https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-topup
• If her own CAT A pension would be less valuable than her Cat B, she should reclaim her deferred pension now, urgently, as a lump sum. Else won't there be a risk of its vanishing once her Cat B begins?
• Class 3A is a one off purchase of an extra entitlement to a pension and is only available to people with a State Pension Date of 5/4/2016 or earlier. It is intended as a "sop" to the people who feel they have been "left out" of the change to nSP.
  Generally anyone on a full Basic Pension is better of deferring or suspending for a period which surrenders the same value of pension as this pays around twice the amount - 10.4%.
  Deferring is a deferring of whatever entitlement you have. The entitlement is calculated when payment starts and if CAT B from spouse contributions is worth more than CAT A (so you only have less than 60% entitlement) you get the CAT B amount. You have no choice over this (and there is no sense in having a choice).
  Deferring does not change this - you defer what you are entitled to wherever it came from.
  Class 3A does not change this. You purchase a set amount of weekly entitlement totally separate from you Basic and AP. I am not sure whether you can defer this?
• Which is totally separate to Class 3A.
  Class 3 voluntary contributions can only be paid by people under SPa. Class 3A (top-ups) can only be paid by people over SPa on 5/4/2016 or earlier.
  They are very different.
• I'm trying hard to follow the discussion to which greenglide and kidmugsy are helpfully contributing. But my brain is beginning to hurt!
  I think I may have inadvertently clouded the issue by referring to a 25% lump sum. Don't quite know where I got that from. I haven't re-checked. But I suspect I was under the impression that if one deferred a state pension, then when one did seek to claim it, one was allowed to take some of it [25%??] as a lump sum, and then the rest of the pension would go into payment in the normal weekly/monthly way. But maybe I've got that wrong.
  Just to recap and to try to keep the discussion on track, the key facts are:
• I have a full NI record, and hit state pension age in Feb 2015. So I qualify for a (full) state pension. I am minded to defer it for at least a year or two, as I have a civil service pension from my employer;
• my wife has a very patchy NI record. We have requested details of how many years' contributions she has, but reckon it's probably less than 10, largely because of no contribs or credits while we were working overseas and because we did not get Child Benefit. So it seems certain that she does not qualify for a full state pension on her own account - we just don't yet know how much, or how little, pension her own NI record would deliver;
• she reached her state pension age in May 2013, but heard nothing then, or since, from the DWP or Pensions Service. By default therefore, whatever pension entitlement she may have, has been deferred.
• incidentally she is a non-taxpayer - has no other earnings, and her income from eg savings interest is well below the Ј10,600 personal allowance. And (touch wood) she is in good health with, we hope, reasonably good life expectancy!
• we are now trying to clarify (a) what her own entitlement may be; (b) whether there is any sensible way of boosting it; and/or (c) whether it's not worth bothering, and better simply to seek a Cat B pension for her based on my NI record.

So far, it looks as if
- as she was born before 6 Oct 52, she might be able to make up to six years of voluntary contribs to increase her own NI record. But unless this takes her total NI years to more than 18 (the level at which her NI record would deliver more than the 60% Cat B pension she could get on the back of my record), it's not worth doing;
- she might be able to take advantage of the opportunity to pay the one-off Class 3A contribs to boost her pension when this becomes possible in Oct 2015 (although if she does not qualify for a "full state pension" it's not clear if she is eligible to do so);
- if she can indeed pay a Class 3A contrib, but it only goes to boost her own (Cat A) pension, it may still be well below the Cat B pension she could get anyway on the back of my NI record, so may not be worth doing;
- but if a class 3A NI payment could be used to boost a Cat B pension, then it might be worth doing (assuming she lives long enough to recoup the sizeable upfront Class 3A payment).
So far, it seems clear that my wife is entitled to a state pension of some kind (Cat A or Cat B) with effect from her own state pension age (which she reached in May 2013). What is still not entirely clear is what if anything we can do to increase what she gets.
I am also struggling to figure out whether (a) she can, and should, now claim whatever lump sum she may be entitled to and which has been de facto deferred since May 2013 (her state pension age); and (b) whether she can then also seek, and receive from now on (or from my state pension age in Feb 2015), a Cat B ongoing pension payment based on my NI record.
So much of this puzzle seems to depend on identifying and asking the right questions! I hope I am doing so...

• With regard to deferring your state pension see https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...024-102014.pdf
  as you have not understood the rules.
  No doubt you understand what you will receive from your Civil Service pension but if you will need to deal with My CSP, you might need to get your skates on if you require forms etc...
  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...5056343&page=4
  https://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN....pdf?dtrk=true might be worth a look.