State pension - filling gaps in National Insurance contributions

[Vinno]

Hey hey,

With all of the doom and gloom regarding the economy going on at the moment I took a moment to check my national insurance history on the HMRC website and found that I am currently sitting on 9 years of full contributions at the age of 34.

I have a few missed years due to redundancies and also during uni when I worked part time and evidently didn't make enough to contribute a full years worth of NI.

For a few of the gap-years in question I would only need to make a small voluntary contribution to fill the gap. I understand that I have many years left to fill the remaining 26 years but for the sake of £300 for 3 years, it's worth it right? For my own peace of mind I think so at least.

Now I am looking at the form which they provide to set up payment and I haven't got a clue how to fill this thing in. Has anyone here possibly done this before and can give me some idea on how to proceed? Since they only ask for a starting date I am guessing that I can't pick and choose particular years that I want to pay for?

Cheers!

 

[Vinno]

Well I decided to ring up and get it dealt with. The automated system told me that I need to ring the Future Pension Centre to get confirmation that it's in my best interests to fill the gaps. I have never found it so difficult to get someone to take my money...sigh.

 

[Vinno]

I rang back and lied to the automated thingy about having advice from the future pension centre. The bloke who eventually answered didn't even mention getting advice from anywhere and just gave me everything I needed to make the payment, thankfully.

I do find it quite annoying how in one of the years where I am short it's because of a 4 week shortfall in my contributions. For the sake of 4 weeks I would have lost a whole year. Oh well it's all sorted now I suppose!