pension rights

[Ken L]

Phone.

 

The pension is a financial product like any other.

The fact that it's linked to the job is irrelevant.

 

If you buy a financial product you will have an agreement with the provider that might say: "I will pay in X amount every week for 40 years and when I hit 65, the product provider will pay me back Y amount every week until I die".

 

If the product provider takes your money and then fails to pay from age 65 and instead makes you wait until you are 67 (keeping two years worth of money that they agreed to pay to you for themselves), they are stealing your money.

 

It really doesn't get any simpler.

[Phone]

Ken L,

 

Perhaps it is that simple. That must be why laboUr goes on strike. They made some stupid mistakes 40 yrs. ago on what constitutes "X" amount. Your example is pretty much irrelevant. Only governments have "fixed benefit" retirement any more.

 

But even then I have NEVER seen a retirement plan that didn't say you can't get paid until you stop working. What chaps my arce is that you think it is your money. Most if not all "fixed benefit" plans have the employer contributing more than the employee. That why such plans are "before tax" plans. It was NEVER your money. You always have the right to "cash out" the amount you contributed plus interest (stated in the contract) It may be money you spent before you received it (many do) but that's a bad idea. You have coming to you at some point in the future an amount to be determined.

 

As an employer, as soon as an employee's "paid up" neither the employee or the employeer made or withheld any further contributions.

 

Your insane logic is exactly why there are or soon will be no such thing as "fixed benefits". First, they are never enough (employees are terrible economists). Second, employees think it is "their" money without NEVER reading the contract.

 

No wonder our children think they live in an age of entitlements.

 

Phone

Edit: The actuarial tables you depend on are just that. Probabilities based on statistical records.

Don't even start on getting paid for unused vacation.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Phone

[Vagabond]

If you buy a financial product you will have an agreement with the provider that might say: "I will pay in X amount every week for 40 years and when I hit 65, the product provider will pay me back Y amount every week until I die".

 

If the product provider takes your money and then fails to pay from age 65 and instead makes you wait until you are 67 (keeping two years worth of money that they agreed to pay to you for themselves), they are stealing your money.

I retired at age 65 fourteen years ago - before these proposals became reality.

 

However, don't doubt that pension providers will try to weasel out of their responsibilities any way they can..

 

I have three pensions, a State Pension, an occupational pension, and a free-standing voluntary pension.

 

Won't bore you with the details, but each and every one of the providers tried to chisel me out of part of my pension. All failed, as I kept records, can do arithmetic, and they soon realised I was quite prepared to escalate any dispute as far as need be (National Press, MP etc etc)

 

As a pensioner, my best riposte is to live as long as possible - already I have drawn more in real terms than I ever paid in.

 

...and its not just the providers that steal your money - don't forget Gordon "Prudence" Brown's massive levy on pension contributions that has precipitated the present mess.

[Leon Roskilly]

http://www.benefitspro.com/2013/08/21/retire-early-live-longer

 

 

 

Retire early, live longer

 

The study’s results raise two major implications. Pension funds would have to pay more and for longer periods of time if people lived longer; but if the retirement age was increased, as many countries are doing, more people would die earlier, relieving stress on already strapped pension plans.

 

Increased mortality would reduce the longevity risk borne by pension funds, which could allow pension funds to make their pension arrangements more generous, the paper concluded.

 

I retired at 60 on a small company pension, at 70 (in January) I'm still managing to fish several times a week, going for long bike rides and 10 mile country walks every other day

Edited September 1, 2013 by Leon Roskilly

[Vagabond]

I retired at 60 on a small company pension, at 70 (in January) I'm still managing to fish several times a week, going for long bike rides and 10 mile country walks every other day

You're just a stripling ! I'm still fishing at 79

 

Because I enjoyed my job, and had organised it to be stress-free (although when I retired they split my post and replaced me with two people) I carried on working until 65

 

Maximum pension and all that

 

Still doing plenty of fishing , here and overseas (we clock up quite a few air miles, so keep pedalling to save emissions )

 

We have a couple of hours of cross-country walking on Ashdown Forest and surrounding woodland each morning before breakfast - don't cover 10 miles though, there is always a bird, dragonfly, plant, spider, fungus or whatever to demand our attention and slow us down.

 

Also have spent more fishing time recently in walking the rivers with a spinning rod, rather than sitting on the bank waiting for a bite.

 

But keep going Leon, it is very important to keep active when you are the wrong side of 70.

 

I just hope the bonus is that eventually one just drops dead one day, rather than have to rot in a so-called care home for years.

[Guest bluedun]

Phone.

 

The pension is a financial product like any other.

The fact that it's linked to the job is irrelevant.

 

If you buy a financial product you will have an agreement with the provider that might say: "I will pay in X amount every week for 40 years and when I hit 65, the product provider will pay me back Y amount every week until I die".

If only it were that straightforward. The majority of pensions these days are saving vehicles in which you hope your money earns a positive return (after the numerous rip off charges along the way). Then you buy an annuity, the value of which depends on gilt yields - very low at present.

 

 

...and its not just the providers that steal your money - don't forget Gordon "Prudence" Brown's massive levy on pension contributions that has precipitated the present mess.

In point of fact, GB nor any other politician has ever imposed a levy on contributions. On the contrary, tax relief on contributions is still pretty good, for the time being. You are perhaps thinking of non-returnable tax credits, which does impact on pension pots, though not as much as the charges exacted by the industry.

[Vagabond]

In point of fact, GB nor any other politician has ever imposed a levy on contributions. On the contrary, tax relief on contributions is still pretty good, for the time being. You are perhaps thinking of non-returnable tax credits, which does impact on pension pots, though not as much as the charges exacted by the industry.

That sounds like an echo chamber for the government spin at the time.

 

What technical term you use to describe it is irrelevant - the net result was that contributions bought less pensions - in effect a levy.

 

Fortunately it happened too late to affect my pension, but people still paying for their pensions now are going to get rather less than they originally expected. The fact that pension industry jackals are ripping off future pensioners is no excuse for government vultures joining in.

[Phone]

bluedun,

 

Are you suggesting pension headquarters buildings are being built by the benefactors?

 

 

National Teacher's Pension Head Office. No one wants to work in a fire trap.

 

Phone

 

Vagabond, Is the any way you can express how you really feel on the subject? Would it be worthwhile for me to disagree?

[Vagabond]

1. Is the any way you can express how you really feel on the subject?

 

2. Would it be worthwhile for me to disagree?

1. Already have. Pension providers are chisellers. I prevented them chiselling me. Am satisfied that I now get the pensions that I paid for. They (and the government) are now chiselling others - as I have pointed out, but let those others fight their own battles. I have won mine, and each passing month that I pocket my pensions adds spice to that victory.

 

2. Feel free, whether or not you disagree "butters no parsnips" as we English say. Your picture is evidence that pension providers make so much money they have difficulty in finding things to spend it on.

[chesters1]

I am 60 in a few days time i hope i actually get a pension and not have it increase in the opposite direction continually so i (like my parents) die before getting to an age to get it !

Even worse for the mrs it jumped a great distance in the last few years

The idea is no-one gets a state pension so the mp's can safely live the life of riley before drawing their extremely generous ones