General Chat

thanks Ann

Frank, you remember correctly as most of us were automatically issued with a National Insurance Number Card before we started work. I still have mine, it's about the size of a credit card and I know they changed to plastic ones at some point! Our employer would then hold and stamp a card for us each year. This continued till 1978 when the flat rate payment of NIC ceased and became a variable amount according to your earnings, but the employer still dealt with it and deducted the amounts from gross pay along with tax.

As already suggested, the pensions department write to you a few months before pension age, but you need to have kept them up to date with your current address or you won't get the letter. If not, you can contact them yourself as someone has said and unless they have already seen sertificates in the past, they will need to see those as well. Anyone using a different name should notify goverment departments what they wish to be known as, ideally at the time, and if the change is by deed poll, the document should be sent so records can be noted.

Yes a National Insurance would be needed or information to help trace it, as your National Insurance account is a bit like a bank account containing a record of all the national insurance payments you have made over your life. It has to be traced to work out whether and how much pension you are entitled to.

Data protection means that no information can be given out about someone as it is confidential as already stated.

If he would be old and might have died by now you could try searches of the death records. My father changed his name by deed poll, but his death record shows his birth certificate name and the name he was known as as well. It could be difficult if he had a name that was common though, but It might be worth a try before you try anything else to trace him.

Andysmum. I thought that they were strictly confidential - just wasn't 100% sure.

Meant to say so in my posting (5th Sept 1.40).

Briefly, you can't. Like your tax records, they are strictly confidential.

thank you everyone.
i was interested in the process of how one claims a pension to maybe explore a way to find the lost uncle im searching for.
if he claimed a pension and if we can assess the records then the pension department must have had an address to mail the giro to.

so any know how to get into pension records?

Frank

Both my wife and I recently received our UK pensions. My wife this year.

She had applied for a Pension forecast but did not remember her NI number. She got a reply asking her to give details of where she worked in the UK but not to bother with the NI number as it would be traced.

Next thing, a few forms to fill in and copies of birth and marriage certificate to be sent off as she was already eligible to receive a part pension. She turned 62 earlier this year.

We thought that she wouldn't be eligible until she was 65.

No Hassles whatsoever. But we did have to supply proof of identity.

We left UK 32 years ago

Yes Frank, we did used to have a card for Social Security. The employer used to stamp them each week they employed you.

Girls paid one rate, boys another (slightly higher) women had two different rates, the "normal" which was lower than a man's and a "married womans" which was lower still. The married woman had to rely on her husbands pension.

Men paid the highest rate of all.


Re National Insurance Numbers - I don't know if there is anyway of finding out what your (lost ) uncles National Insurance number was. the usual format is two letters followed by three sets of two numbers followed by a single letter.
The last letter was A or B or C (and perhaps D).

Nowadays we dont have cards - just a number - we all pay according to earnings - and this is recorded by employeer each year - details sent to empployee and tax office.

If you are wondering about any pension owed to you, follow Kathleen Bell's advice.

Perhaps if you put some details about your uncle on the Find Living Reletives section someone may be able to help you.

A lot of the members on GR love to help!.

Even if they don't have your present address you can ring them up and tell them when and where you worked in the UK and they will track down your details. My sister lives in America and she did this. The pension office in Newcastle were really helpful and sorted it all out for her. She has been in America since the 60's and it was the 50's and early 60's that she worked over here.

I'm sure they must have asked for other details which I don't know about but she said the whole process was really easy and she also told a friend of hers who also worked in England many years ago and they helped her friend to get the pension she was due too.

Kath. x

if they have your details, when you reach pensionable age they contact you

i left England as a young man and never thought of how my pension there would work.
as i now try to trace my lost uncle im wondering how one goes about drawing a pension in the UK.

if my lost and estranged uncle who left home never to return, simply decided to live under another name it would have been pretty easy i think back in the late 50's early 60's.

so what would have happened if and when he wanted to draw a pension?
how did that work?
do you just walk into the post office and say im 65 give me money?
i recall i had a social security card with a number on it. was it called a social security card? it was a green card if my memory serves.
do you need to tell the pension people your social security number to draw a pension?
or do you need a birth certificate?
could one trace a person through pension records?
are pension records available?

i left the UK 34 years ago so i do not fully understand how the pension system works there.

thanks for your thoughts

Frank