Research and analysis

Additional voluntary National Insurance contributions at State Pension age

Additional voluntary National Insurance contributions at State Pension age: Results from an online survey.

• From: Department for Work and Pensions
• Published: 20 December 2013

Documents

Additional voluntary National Insurance contributions at State Pension age

Ref: ISBN 978-1-78425-030-0

PDF, 384 KB, 56 pages

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Details

Report: Additional voluntary National Insurance contributions at State Pension age: Results from an online survey.

By Maria Strudwick and Patrick Raffan

At the Autumn Statement 2013 the government announced its intention to introduce a scheme to allow pensioners to top up their Additional State Pension by paying a new class of voluntary National Insurance contribution, to be known as Class 3A.

The scheme will open in October 2015 and will be available to all pensioners who reach State Pension age before the introduction of the single tier pension in April 2016.

Class 3A will give pensioners an option to top up their pension in a way that will protect them from inflation throughout their lifetime and offer protection to surviving spouses. In particular it could help women, and those who have been self-employed, who tend to have low Additional Pension entitlement.

This research was commissioned to provide understanding of the likely take-up of this extension of voluntary National Insurance contributions.

The research was carried out between May and June 2013 with 1100 people nearing or at current State Pension age. The research consisted of an online survey conducted by Ipsos MORI using members of their online survey panel.

We have used this research to show:

• levels of interest in taking up voluntary contributions – having been given two indicative prices (a higher and a lower one)
• reasons people say they would or would not take up the contributions

More information is available in the policy paper Class 3A Voluntary National Insurance: policy detail.

Published 20 December 2013