UK Old Age Pension in Thailand

[Khundon1975]

My GP got in touch with me as I had not had my Diabetic check, he told me that he has to see me at least once a year otherwise he misses the targets set by the health trust and he loses money!
I know of people that have been removed from a doctors patient list because they have missed yearly checks!

[Korkenzieher]

I got some grief the last time I went to a UK doctor asking whether I still lived in the area. No idea whether I have been removed from their list, but in all honesty I found the system there so user-unfriendly after so many years away that I'd be unlikely to go back anyway. I wanted coeliac checks (My father is, and my sister and I are both wheat allergic. The difference is important!), and thyroid (my mother and 3 of her 4 siblings are, and I checked out as having low function in a private scan some years previously). The doctors there seemed to take quite some exception to me asking to have specific checks done for specific reasons. Quite happy to accept that I have to pay for my healthcare, and insure against extremes. Private Healthcare every time. Cheaper too, IMHO.

[kavan]

you can pay lomp sum at 64 and get a better pension

[Korkenzieher]

Well, I kept up voluntary contributions (in arrears) since about 1996 - shortly after I arrived in Germany. That has turned out to be quiet a reasonable deal now that the qualifying period has been dropped to 30 years. In essence, I paid 2 lump sum payments of 9 and 6 years which have given me a total 26 year contributions history, with quite an amount of time during which I can shell out for the last 4. Fairly obviously, the sooner the cheaper, if paying in arrears; though that would be wasted money if I work in the UK anytime before retiring. A trade off then.

Of course, it is predicated on there being a pension worth collecting by the time I am qualified (by age 67), but in talking to the Expat people at HMRC in Newcastle, it seems that one option is to defer receipt. Apparently what this means is that I can elect (as I understood it) to either delay receipt for say a year or more in return for a larger pension or choose a lump sum at the end of the year - I guess they hope I snuff it and they save on a payout, as well as making savings on processing the sum as an aggregate. I expect that the defer-and-increase plan assumes that I would not have paid up full contributions.

This is what interests me about the 'top-up' issue above, because it seems as though maintaining a Philippines account will allow you to receive top-ups. Receiving the pension then as a lump-sum will moderate the costs of transfer into PHP, and then onwards - perhaps to THB. It might not be the cheapest solution, but the top-ups will soon outstrip the cost of doing it that way, even though there will always be some loss.

[margaretcarnes]

Well, I kept up voluntary contributions (in arrears) since about 1996 - shortly after I arrived in Germany. That has turned out to be quiet a reasonable deal now that the qualifying period has been dropped to 30 years. In essence, I paid 2 lump sum payments of 9 and 6 years which have given me a total 26 year contributions history, with quite an amount of time during which I can shell out for the last 4. Fairly obviously, the sooner the cheaper, if paying in arrears; though that would be wasted money if I work in the UK anytime before retiring. A trade off then.

Of course, it is predicated on there being a pension worth collecting by the time I am qualified (by age 67), but in talking to the Expat people at HMRC in Newcastle, it seems that one option is to defer receipt. Apparently what this means is that I can elect (as I understood it) to either delay receipt for say a year or more in return for a larger pension or choose a lump sum at the end of the year - I guess they hope I snuff it and they save on a payout, as well as making savings on processing the sum as an aggregate. I expect that the defer-and-increase plan assumes that I would not have paid up full contributions.

This is what interests me about the 'top-up' issue above, because it seems as though maintaining a Philippines account will allow you to receive top-ups. Receiving the pension then as a lump-sum will moderate the costs of transfer into PHP, and then onwards - perhaps to THB. It might not be the cheapest solution, but the top-ups will soon outstrip the cost of doing it that way, even though there will always be some loss.

Anyone can opt to defer their State Pension for one full year at a time, up to a maximum of 5 years. The benefit is either a 10% increase on the final pension for every year deferred, or a £4000 lump sum for every year deferred.
For expats doing this the annual April upratings won't of course happen either on the basic pension or on the 10% accrued increase/es.
It is very difficult, if not impossible, to predict with any certainty whether deferment options will actually benefit retirees by the time they get there. Especially with those who won't even start to qualify for pensions until the age of 67.
But there are a couple of potential pitfalls to be aware of. First the tax situation for those who will have other pensions in addition to the State one, because they are all counted as taxable income (if there is still UK tax liability) and second - this is just a guess at the moment - but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the 5 year deferment option doesn't start to disappear as the womens pension age equalises at 65, and the further age increases start to kick in.
There don't appear to be any plans yet - it may well be one of those things which HMG tend to overlook when implementing changes these days - but whatever they do I can't really see many people wanting to defer potentially to the age of 72 anyway.