British women should take up the government's offer of buying back missing National Insurance contributions, an advisory firm has said.
Women who take lengthly periods off work on maternity leave should always be sure to update their National Insurance contributions, a top savings advisor has said.
Ruth Whitehead Associates, an advisory firm, made the comments in the wake of the announcement of a government drive to help women to "buy back" missing National Insurance payments in order to ensure a good state pension.
Ministers made the move as a result of existing pensions laws, which some say discriminate against women. Current legislation requires contributions to have been made for at least 90 per cent of the pensioner's working life if he or she is to receive the full state pension.
However, due to taking time off to have and raise children, many women are failing this requirement and are therefore missing out. To this end, the Department for Work and Pensions is offering those who missed payments between the years 1996 and 2002 the opportunity to make them up at a special discount rate.
Commenting, principal advisor Ruth Whitehead said: "[Women] are far more likely to have had gaps in their employment [than men], largely due to staying at home with the children. Therefore, a good place to start is to make sure that your National Insurance contributions are up to date so that you don't lose out with your state pension provision."
She added: "But the state pension provision is not going to keep you in a comfortable old age, so it's really, really important that you make contributions to other [areas] year on year; if you keep plugging away at ISAs [tax-free savings accounts], you'll be very pleased."
Compare savings accounts via money.co.uk
