The £95.25 a week state pension may not seem very much. But to buy a pension
that big which goes up each year in line with price rises would take a pension
fund of well over £100,000. So it is important to make sure that you get a full
state pension as the bedrock of your retirement.
Anyone reaching pension age from 6 April 2010 – women born on 6 April 1950 or
later and men born from 6 April 1945 – will get a full state pension with thirty
years National Insurance contributions. Out of a working life of more than 45
years that is not too hard a target. And is a big improvement on the rules for
people who reach pension age before that date. They need 39 years (women) and 44
for men.
Women will also be helped by another change next April. Every week when they get
child benefit or care for a disabled adult will count as week when National
Insurance was paid. This replaces a complex and les generous system called home
responsibilities protection which applies to women who reach pension age before
6 April 2010.
If you do not have enough contributions you may be able to buy extra to fill the
gap. That will cost you up to £626 for each year you fill. But will bring an
extra pension of up to £198 a year for life. So it is a good deal. You can buy
any missing year back to 2003/04. People who reach pension age before 6 April
2015 (but after 5 April 2008) can buy six more years back to 1975/76. But if you
buy extra years you do not need you cannot get them back.
Some married women pay reduced rate NI contributions. They do not count towards
a pension and the gaps they leave cannot be filled. It is almost always better
to change to full contributions.