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Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund

Payment of your defined benefit pension

Approximately 6 months before your Normal Pension Age (NPA) we will write to you to give you a summary of all your benefits from the MNOPF and how to claim them.

If you want to start preparing your documents and information in advance, the information we will require from you is given below:

Age and marital status

In order to start paying your benefits, you will need to provide us with:

  • evidence of your age
  • evidence of your spouse’s or civil partner’s age (if applicable)
  • proof of marriage/civil partnership (if applicable)

Original birth and marriage/civil partnership certificates are usually needed, however, if you do not have your birth certificate, your original passport will also be acceptable.

Pensions with other providers

We will also need to know about other benefits from other pension schemes where you have benefits already in payment or will start to be paid before, or at the same time as, your MNOPF retirement date. This is because we are required by HMRC to check that you have not, or will not, exceed the Lifetime Allowance tax threshold.

Types of pension we need to know about are:

  • A former employer’s UK pension scheme, including any Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) scheme attached to it
  • A statutory pension scheme for employees in the UK public sector (like teachers, police or local government employees) including any AVC scheme linked to it
  • A UK Freestanding AVC scheme
  • A UK Retirement Annuity Contract or Trust scheme
  • A UK Personal or Stakeholder Pension scheme, unless it took only minimum contributions for contracting out of the State Pension scheme
  • An overseas pension scheme accepted by HMRC in the UK as equivalent to a UK pension scheme

The information we will need for each scheme is:

  • Name of the scheme
  • Contact name and address
  • Telephone number
  • Dates you joined, and left, the scheme
  • The Lifetime Allowance