‘Can my wife get a state pension if she's never paid National Insurance?'
Write to Pensions Doctor with your pension problem: pensionsdoctor@telegraph.co.uk. Columns are published weekly.
Dear Charlene,
I am an NHS doctor and soon to retire, although I have been drawing my state pension for a few years already.
My wife is 65 and a British passport holder, but she has never contributed to National Insurance (NI). She did work part-time in a clerical role, earning around £500 per month at the time. She also has a small pension pot.
I have two questions about my wife:
When she reaches age 67, is she eligible for any state pension at all?
After my death, will she get any part of my state pension? I believe she will get half of my NHS pension payments.
Many thanks,
–B
Dear B,
I'll begin by going through the state pension rules before looking at the payments that could be made from your pensions on your death.
Under the 'new' state pension system, your wife will need at least 10 qualifying years to get any state pension in her own right.
Although your wife was not earning enough to pay NI when she was working part-time, she may still have built up some qualifying years for the state pension.
That's because her £500 monthly wage could have put her above the lower earnings limit (LEL) at the time. The LEL was designed for people in your wife's situation. It is currently set at £125 per week, above which an employee who is not earning enough to pay NI gets a credit in the NI system, allowing qualification for certain benefits, including the state pension. NI contributions are treated as having been paid for those years to protect someone's record.
Your wife, therefore, needs to check her NI record and get a state pension forecast – both of which can be done online on the government website – as soon as possible to see if she has benefited from credits at all. From there, it will be clearer as to whether there is scope to plug any gaps with voluntary contributions to get her to the 10 required years, or beyond.
Your own state pension
You are also under the 'new' state pension system, which began in April 2016, and you have already claimed your pension. Under the new system, there is less scope for a surviving spouse to inherit anything. But surviving spouses or civil partners might be able to claim up to 50pc of their late partner's 'protected payment'.
This is the amount they receive if they paid into the additional state pension before 2016 and would have been better off under the old system. Your state pension statement will show if you are receiving any protected payment at the moment. But, if I'm correct in assuming that you've been an NHS doctor your whole career, I think it is unlikely that you will be receiving it. This is because the NHS pension was 'contracted out' of the additional state pension.
Your NHS pension
You've already mentioned a 50pc spouse's pension that would be paid to your wife after your death. It's also worth checking with the NHS pension scheme to double-check if your wife will be entitled to anything else.
Clearly, I want to wish you a long and happy retirement but, as an example, if you were to die within five years of retiring, your wife might also be eligible to receive a lump sum from the scheme too.
This could be up to five times your annual pension, less any payments made to you up until your death. The lump sum on offer will depend on which section of the NHS scheme you are part of, and how much tax-free lump sum you take at the start, among other factors, so it is best to speak to the scheme itself to get the full picture.
It's worth mentioning that pension credit can provide extra money to help with living costs for people over state pension age with a low income. But it's likely that any death benefit payable from your NHS pension will put your wife over the income limit.
With best wishes,
–Charlene
Charlene Young is a pensions and savings expert at online investment platform AJ Bell. Her columns should not be taken as advice or as a personal recommendation, but as a starting point for readers to undertake their own further research.
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