Additional Pension

Additional Pension is an amount of extra annual pension that can be bought when you’re in employment and contributing to the scheme. To qualify, you have to be below your normal pension age and you can’t be absent from work due to ill health. Any additional pension purchased is payable on retirement in addition to the other benefits you’ve accrued in your scheme.

Additional Pension can be bought in multiples of £250 of annual pension, up to a maximum of £6750. You can pay for it either as a single lump sum or through additional monthly contributions over a period of 1 to 20 years.

The cost of purchasing additional pension will vary depending on many factors, including the amount purchased, your age at time of purchase and the length of repayment.

Cover options

Your Additional Pension purchases can cover either:

• an increase in pension for yourself only or;
• an increase in pension for yourself AND the pension payable to your dependants (spouse, partner or dependent children) after your death.

How to pay for your Additional Pension contract

If you are contracted to work full time or part time you can pay for it either as a single lump sum or through additional monthly contributions over a period of 1 to 20 years.

If you are contacted to work on a bank post only, you can purchase additional pension by lump sum payment, the option to purchase in monthly instalments is not available.

Lump sum: Payment must be made to SPPA within one month of your application being accepted.

Monthly contribution: Payment must be taken over whole years only. Payments are subject to tax relief through the PAYE system and will be reviewed after each scheme valuation. This may mean that your monthly repayment costs increase or decrease depending on the outcome of the valuation.

Estimate the cost of buying Additional Pension

If you'd like to work out how much it's likely to cost to purchase Additional Pension to add to your NHS retirement benefits, just use our handy Additional Pension Calculator.

It will give you an indication of the single payments or monthly contributions you'd have to pay to get the extra pension amount you require.

Download the Additional Pension Calculator

Get a personal quotation

Leaving early or ceasing contributions

If you wish to stop making regular contributions to an Additional Pension contract, you'll need to complete the Additional Pension – Cessation/Cancellation Of Contract application form and send it to your Employer.

If you have multiple contracts with different employers, you should contact the employer that makes your Additional Pension deductions.

If you leave NHS employment but return within 12 months and haven’t received a refund of your contributions, you may be able to restart your Additional Pension payments on your original terms. If your break in service is more than 12 months, or you received a refund, the agreement will be terminated and you’ll be credited with the proportion of the Additional Pension you’ve paid for.

You can choose to withdraw from the Additional Pension contract at any time. If you do, you’ll receive a proportionate credit of the benefits paid for when you retire.

Early Retirement

If you retire before your normal pension age and claim your pension, your Additional Pension will be reduced for early payment. If you were paying by monthly instalments, your benefits may be reduced further as you won’t have completed your expected contract.

If you’re a member of the 2015 scheme and you’ve also taken out an NHS Early Retirement Reduction Buy Out, the value of this contract will also be taken into account to ensure you don’t exceed the maximum amount of additional pension allowed by the regulations.

Ill Health Retirement

If you have to leave NHS employment on ill-health grounds, your Additional Pension will be payable without reduction as long as you have paid into your contract for at least 12 months and you were in good health at the time your contract started. If you leave on ill-health grounds less than 12 months into your contract, your contributions will be refunded to you and your Additional Pension contract will be cancelled.

Death Benefits

In the event of your death, if you’ve been paying into your Additional Pension contract for at least 12 months and you’ve elected to buy benefits for your dependants, they’ll receive a pension equal to 37.5% of the additional pension you would have received.

The dependants’ pension will be payable in full, even if you haven’t completed your agreed contract, as long as you were in good health when your election commenced. If you did not choose to include dependants’ cover on your Additional Pension contract, no pension will be payable to them.

Revaluation

Additional Pension is index linked, both before it comes into payment, known as a ‘pre-payment increase’ and also when it is being paid, known as an ‘in payment’ increase.

If your application was made:

• on or before 31 March 2011 – pre-payment increases are made in line with the Retail Prices Index while in payment increases are made in line with the Consumer Prices Index.
• on or after 1 April 2011 – both the pre-payment and in payment increases are made in line with Consumer Prices Index.

Additional Pension and Annual Allowance

If the growth in your benefits exceeds the Annual Allowance limit, you may be subject to a tax charge. Given the potential tax implications, you should seek professional financial advice if you’re planning to make a lump sum payment to purchase Additional Pension. Information about Annual Allowance.

Important notes

Additional Pension does not provide an automatic lump sum, but can be included in the total amount of pension given up in exchange for a lump sum at retirement.

It may be possible to take out more than one contract to purchase Additional Pension, however SPPA will take into account any existing contracts you may have to ensure you don’t exceed the maximum allowed. You can continue to pay any existing Additional Pension contracts you may have if you move to the 2015 scheme.

It’s your responsibility to ensure your employer deducts the correct amount from your salary. If you identify an error, you should contact them immediately.

As well as paying into your NHS pension scheme, you can also contribute to a stakeholder pension and to pension arrangements known as Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) and Free Standing Additional Voluntary Contributions (FSAVCs).

These options allow you to make tax-efficient contributions that allow you to build up a separate pension pot in addition to your NHS pension. These contracts are offered by a wide range of financial services providers and it makes sense to seek independent financial advice before proceeding with these types of arrangement.