State Pension Forecast Accuracy
Posted: July 22nd, 2021, 6:31 am
I have today received my first State Pension payment.
It is less than I expected and I'm therefore wondering how much trust I should have placed in my gov.uk online pension forecasts.
I applied for my SP at the earliest opportunity and had a letter dated 18 March saying it would be £675.68 every 4 weeks, i.e. £168.92 per week. At that time my forecast was £169.78 per week. I put the difference down to the letter probably basing the figures on actual NI contributions up to March 28 whereas the forecast was based on an assumption that they would continue until April 2021
Since April 2021 and the 2.5% triple lock pension increase, my forecast has shown a figure of £174.05 per week so I expected today's first partial payment to be based on this figure. However it is exactly the amount quoted in the 18 March letter, so is less than the online forecast as it was even before the April rise, let alone taking the April rise into account.
Before I ring them and face the inevitable long queue, I thought I'd just check here first to see if I'm making some fundamental errors in my assumptions around whether the gov.uk forecast is something I should rely on.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
It is less than I expected and I'm therefore wondering how much trust I should have placed in my gov.uk online pension forecasts.
I applied for my SP at the earliest opportunity and had a letter dated 18 March saying it would be £675.68 every 4 weeks, i.e. £168.92 per week. At that time my forecast was £169.78 per week. I put the difference down to the letter probably basing the figures on actual NI contributions up to March 28 whereas the forecast was based on an assumption that they would continue until April 2021
Since April 2021 and the 2.5% triple lock pension increase, my forecast has shown a figure of £174.05 per week so I expected today's first partial payment to be based on this figure. However it is exactly the amount quoted in the 18 March letter, so is less than the online forecast as it was even before the April rise, let alone taking the April rise into account.
Before I ring them and face the inevitable long queue, I thought I'd just check here first to see if I'm making some fundamental errors in my assumptions around whether the gov.uk forecast is something I should rely on.
Thanks in advance for any advice.