What happened to my money when I opted out of SERPS?

Where is my money now? If you opted out of your SERPS pension, then you would have invested the money into either a money purchase pension scheme or a final salary (defined benefit scheme). It may state that this element of your pension has protected rights but this was in fact abolished in 2012.

How do I opt back into SERPS?

OPTING back into Serps is a simple procedure. A spokesman for the Inland Revenue said: “To contract back into Serps all you have to do is contact your current pension provider and request a form: reference CA1543. Your pension provider then fills this in for you, and sends it to the Revenue.

What age can I cash in my SERPS pension?

55
If you did opt out of SERPS and have a protected rights pension, you can access this pension from the age of 55 (rising to 57 from 2028 ). You can take the first 25% of this pension as a tax-free lump sum if you want to. After that, any withdrawals will be taxed at your income tax rate.

How do I find my contracted out pension?

You can find out if you were contracted out by: checking your payslip. checking with your employer….You’re more likely to have been contracted out if you’ve worked in the public sector, for example:

the NHS.
local councils.
fire services.
the civil service.
teaching.
police forces.
the armed forces.

How do you find out if I paid into SERPS?

You can perform a SERPS pension check by writing to HMRC with your NI number and a few other personal details, including your full name, previous name, address and date of birth. HMRC will take around 30 days to respond with details of any pension providers you paid into as a result of opting out of SERPS.

When did contracting out of SERPS start?

Introduced in 1978 and originally called the state earnings related pension scheme (Serps), it became the state second pension (S2P) in 2002. Before the rules changed in 2012, employees were allowed to ‘contract out’ of this additional pension.