Seeing the full picture behind your McCloud buy back options.
If you’re affected by the McCloud discrimination, you may be able to buy back pension service or reinstate Added Years/Added Pension. But the official quotes only show part of the story. They don’t reflect the knock-on effects on Annual Allowance tax charges or how reinstatement interacts with your existing benefits.
That’s where we come in. We compare your options side-by-side, factoring in tax, allowances, and long-term pension impacts, so you can see the true net benefit.
Real examples we’ve uncovered:
- One quote suggested it would take 15 years to break even. But when we looked at the wider impact, the extra lump sum alone covered the full contribution cost and still left £15,000 tax-free cash, plus an extra £8,000 a year pension on top. In other words, free pension from day one.
- Another quote suggested nearly £5,000 a year extra pension. But after accounting for pension tax and how Scheme Pays reduces the pension, it turned out the member would not actually receive any increase, and would instead be paying to cut their pension by almost £1,000 a year.
The NHS Pension Scheme rules are highly complex, and decisions like these carry consequences that are rarely obvious from the official paperwork. That’s why expert support is essential.
Our fees may be recoverable under the cost claim-back scheme, which has already refunded costs for members in our pilot cases.
The result: a clear, evidence-based view of the true net benefit (or cost) of buy back — helping you avoid costly mistakes and make an informed decision.
Once our analysis is complete, we recommend you also seek financial advice to see how this impacts your wider financial plan.
Sometimes more is less, and less is more.
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