What happens to your SERPS or additional State Pension entitlement?
Additional State Pension built up before April 2016 through SERPS or the State Second Pension has not disappeared. Where your 2016 starting amount exceeded the full new State Pension, the excess became a protected payment that is paid on top — increased each year by CPI rather than by the triple lock.
- What it was: SERPS from 1978 and the State Second Pension from 2002, both earnings-related.
- What happened: it fed into your 2016 starting amount for the new State Pension.
- The protected payment: any excess above the full new rate, paid on top for life.
- The uprating: CPI, not the triple lock, so it falls behind the main pension over time.
01 Where it came from
The State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme ran from 1978 and was replaced by the State Second Pension in 2002. Both paid an additional State Pension on top of the basic one, based on earnings, and both ended when the new State Pension began in April 2016.
People who were contracted out gave up part or all of that accrual in exchange for a lower National Insurance rate, with the scheme providing the equivalent instead. That is why two people with identical earnings can have very different additional pension entitlements.
At 6 April 2016 everything you had accrued was converted into a starting amount for the new State Pension, calculated as the higher of what the old rules and the new rules would have given.
Source: The new State Pension
02 The protected payment
Where the starting amount exceeded the full new State Pension, the excess became a protected payment. It is paid on top of the full new rate for life, and further qualifying years after 2016 cannot increase it — the new State Pension itself is already at its maximum.
That is worth knowing because it changes the value of continuing to contribute. Someone with a protected payment has nothing to gain from additional qualifying years, which is the opposite of the usual advice about filling gaps.
It is also the reason a forecast can show more than the headline full rate. The figure is not an error; it is the full new State Pension plus the protected payment.
03 Why it shrinks over time
The protected payment is increased each year in line with CPI, while the main new State Pension rises under the triple lock — the highest of earnings, CPI or 2.5%. In most years the triple lock is more generous, so the protected payment falls behind as a proportion of the total.
Over a long retirement that divergence is material, and it is invisible on a payslip because both parts arrive as one payment. Someone whose protected payment is a large share of their State Pension is more exposed to inflation than the headline uprating suggests.
The protected payment also has different rules on inheritance from the rest of the pension, which matters for a surviving spouse and is the one part of the new State Pension that can pass on at all.
Shows: how a protected payment falls behind the main State Pension when the two are uprated at different rates. Ignores: tax, the exact uprating in any given year, and any change to the triple lock.
On the defaults above, the worked example shows £46 a week. The protected payment falls from 11.7% of your State Pension to 9.6% over 15 years at these rates.
If your forecast shows more than the headline full rate, that extra is a protected payment from SERPS or the State Second Pension, and two things follow. Additional qualifying years cannot increase it, so the usual advice about filling gaps may not apply to you — check the forecast before paying for anything. And it rises by CPI while the rest of your State Pension rises under the triple lock, so it shrinks as a share of your income every year. Neither of those appears anywhere on a payment statement.
FAQ
Did my SERPS entitlement disappear in 2016?
No. It fed into your starting amount for the new State Pension, and where that starting amount exceeded the full new rate, the excess became a protected payment paid on top for life.
Can I increase my protected payment?
No. Further qualifying years after 2016 cannot increase it, because the new State Pension element is already at its maximum. For someone with a protected payment, filling gaps may add nothing at all.
Why does my forecast exceed the full rate?
Because it includes a protected payment on top of the full new State Pension. That is the SERPS or State Second Pension entitlement carried forward, and it is uprated by CPI rather than by the triple lock.
Sources
Regulator references
- The new State Pension · GOV.UK · 2025Sets the qualifying-year rules and the full new State Pension rate this post works from.Last verified: 2026-09-07
- Check your State Pension forecast · GOV.UK · 2025The forecast service this post tells the reader to read before acting.Last verified: 2026-09-07
- Benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027 · Department for Work and Pensions · 2026The published weekly rates for the current tax year, which every figure in this post uses.Last verified: 2026-09-07
Calculator unit tests · the assertions this page's worked example is checked against, and their last result
Changelog
- 2026-09-07 — initial publish (new format)
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Jordan Reeves
Founder of Talk Through Wealth. A software engineer for over a decade before turning to retirement planning, Jordan built the projection engine after watching family members get fragmented, country-by-country advice that never reconciled. He writes about retirement the way the engine computes it: month-by-month, lifetime-long, and skeptical of any rule of thumb that hasn't been run through the math.