State Pensions - claim early

NI contributions you have paid, are recorded in your name. Your NI record is exactly what’s used to decide whether you get a full State Pension, a reduced one, or none at all.

So while NI isn’t a personal savings pot, it’s also not some anonymous pile of money floating around in a metaphor. It’s a personal contribution record, and that’s why questions about fairness for people who may not reach pension age are valid.

And for context, many countries do allow early access to state pension income for people with severe disability or reduced life expectancy. The UK is actually unusual in not having any equivalent provision.

@Wibbles

100% agree with you.

NI isn’t a savings pot, but it is built on your own contributions. A system that demands decades of payments yet ignores the reality of disability or serious illness simply isn’t fair. Allowing people with severe, medically verified conditions to access their State Pension early isn’t radical, it is common sense.

And here is the point that needs saying clearly, if you have a private pension, you can access it early on ill health grounds. The rules, the mechanism, the principle already exist. But if you have spent your life paying into the State system, often because a private pension wasn’t an option, you are told to wait no matter how sick you are.

Other countries recognise this gap and address it. The UK doesn’t. That gap between contribution and access isn’t just a policy flaw, it is a fundamental failure of fairness. 

This has nothing to do with people claiming benefits or PIP. It is about fairness for those with medically verified severe or life‑limiting conditions who have already paid in for decades.

The idea that “no one else can do that” is not accurate. Private pensions already allow early access on ill‑health grounds. It is standard practice, not special treatment.

So why does the same principle not apply to the State Pension, especially for people who have contributed for 40+ years but physically cannot work to pension age?

And this may surprise you, @SwiftFox, but there are thousands of people who do not qualify for means‑tested benefits, yet when serious illness ends their working life, they are left with nothing.

These are people who have done everything society asked of them, paid in for 40+ years, worked hard, contributed faithfully. And when they need the system most, it turns its back. They are not asking for handouts. They are asking for the dignity of accessing what they have already earned. Other countries recognise this gap and address it, so why not the UK?

The question isn’t whether anyone cares about “missing out” when they’re dead, that completely misses the point. The real issue is how people are supposed to live in the years before they die if they are too ill to work, do not qualify for means tested support, and have no other income. After a lifetime of contributions, can they pay the bills, keep some dignity, and have basic financial security?

Early access for a clearly defined group, people with severe or life limiting, medically verified conditions, is about basic fairness in those final working age years, not about special treatment or wanting “something extra”.

I understand your point, and I do appreciate what you’re saying about how unpredictable health can be. Your concern about people being incentivised is exactly why my idea is so narrow.

You simply can’t fake a well‑documented, incurable medical condition such as motor neurone disease or an incurable cancer that physically affects the body. These illnesses have clear diagnostic pathways, specialist involvement, and objective clinical evidence behind them. They’re not the sort of conditions anyone could talk their way into or exaggerate for gain.

That’s why I’m talking about a very small group of people with severe, irreversible conditions and a full or near full NI contribution record. This isn’t something open to manipulation but a safeguard for those whose circumstances are already beyond doubt.

Many countries already allow early pension access in these situations under strict medical criteria, including Australia, New Zealand, parts of Europe, Canada and the United States.

With our own retirement age now rising to 67, it seems entirely reasonable for the government to consider something similar here.