A caller into his BBC podcast shared how she had managed to get her pension uprated by 20 per cent thanks to keeping her old records.
The woman from Builth Wells in Wales said she was formerly an NHS administrator, leaving her job in 1992. She had paid into a pension scheme where your pension is based on your highest 12 months’ worth of pay, during the last 36 months you worked for the group.
She started claiming her pension in 2022 but was sure they had calculated it wrong, as they appeared to have calculated it merely based on her last 12 months working for the NHS, providing a lower amount compared to if they had looked at the full 36 months.
‘Real money’
The pensioner contacted the provider, who assured her it was correct. She took the matter to appeal and was asked to provide evidence of what her pay was. So she rummaged through her “box at the back of the wardrobe” and found her payslips from 1990 to 1992, to prove what she was being paid at the time.
Thanks to her efforts, she secured a 20 per cent uplift to her pension. Mr Lewis said it was a “wonderful” story and such an increase was “real money”.
Mr Lewis took the opportunity to urge people to keep their financial records in order. He said: “People always ask me, ‘How long do you keep paperwork for?’
“The sort of official rules are it’s four or six years depending on your circumstances.
“My answer is, you keep the important stuff forever. It doesn’t need to be paper, you just need to keep a record. You can take a photo of it, you can digitize it.”
He explained why you should keep this paperwork on file indefinitely. Mr Lewis said: “We don’t know what the future mis-selling scandals will be, we don’t know what the future problems will be.”
What financial details shoul I keep on record?
Mr Lewis went on to say it’s a good idea to keep a hold of these details:
- Payslips
- Bank statements
- Sign-up documents for new products.
He added: “You just never know when it’s going to pay dividends later.”