Martin Lewis has encouraged people to keep their financial details in order after sharing a pension success story from a caller on his BBC podcast. The woman, from Builth Wells in Wales, explained how she secured a 20 per cent increase to her pension by digging out old payslips.
The former NHS administrator left her job in 1992 and had paid into a pension scheme where benefits are based on the highest 12 months of pay during the last 36 months of employment. When she began claiming her pension in 2022, she believed the calculation was wrong, as it appeared to be based only on her final 12 months, resulting in a lower amount.
Appeal and evidence
After contacting the provider, who assured her the figure was correct, she appealed the decision. She was asked to provide evidence of her earlier earnings, so she searched through a “box at the back of the wardrobe” and found payslips from 1990 to 1992 proving what she was paid at the time.
Thanks to her efforts, her pension was uprated by 20 per cent. Mr Lewis described it as a “wonderful” story and said such an increase represented “real money”.
Martin Lewis’s advice on keeping records
Mr Lewis used the opportunity to urge people to keep their financial records organised. “People always ask me, ‘How long do you keep paperwork for?’” he said. “The sort of official rules are it's four or six years depending on your circumstances. My answer is, you keep the important stuff forever. It doesn't need to be paper, you just need to keep a record. You can take a photo of it, you can digitize it.”
He explained why indefinite storage matters: “We don't know what the future mis-selling scandals will be, we don't know what the future problems will be.”
What financial details to keep
Mr Lewis recommended holding onto payslips, bank statements, and sign-up documents for new products. He added: “You just never know when it's going to pay dividends later.”
