Understanding your protected pension rights
Some members of older Police pensions schemes qualified for protected pension rights when the current Police Pension Scheme came into force in 2015. The level of protection you may have will depend on how close you were to retirement when the current scheme was introduced.
Full protection
Members who qualified for full protection continued to earn benefits in their former scheme as before, kept the same normal pension age and see no change to the way their benefits are calculated at retirement. To qualify for full protection, you had to have been paying into your scheme on 1 April 2012 and 1 April 2015 and meet certain age or services conditions.
For the Police 1987 scheme, your ongoing rights were fully protected in that scheme if, on 1 April 2012, you were at least 45 years old or were 38 or over and within 10 years of receiving a maximum, unreduced pension.
If you were in the Police 2006 scheme, your ongoing rights were fully protected if, on 1 April 2012, you were aged 45 or over.
Tapered protection
Some members of the Police 1987 and the Police 2006 schemes who were were close to retirement when the Police 2015 scheme was launched but didn’t qualify for full protection, received what’s known as ‘tapered protection’.
If you were within four years of qualifying for full protection and were paying into your pension scheme on 1 April 2012 and 1 April 2015, you’ll join the 2015 scheme at a later date.