There are major changes to the UK state pension scheme in progress. Anyone who worked in the UK for 3 years (and possibly even 1 year) is entitled to some portion of a UK state pension. You can pay back up to 7 years and only 30 years will be required for a full pension.
This is not be sneezed at: the full pension is £93 a week and a spouse (even one not born in the UK) gets 60% = £56. In dollars the maximum current total = $17 022 a year. The amount will be indexed until received at age 65, when indexation stops for Commonwealth citizens. (The Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners is fighting that.) I do not pretend to be an expert or even accurate on this matter. However, I suggest any doctor who worked in the UK should look into it. I did to my advantage.
It would take a considerable lump sum to generate that sort of annual income until death.
More information is available at the non-profit www.britishpensions.com [9]. There is also a commercial advocate who promises a win-win arrangement for recovering or augmenting your UK pension: Tom Hewetson, www.britpensions.ca [10].
—Ralph Jones, MD
Chilliwack
Links
[1] https://bcmj.org/cover/september-2007
[2] https://bcmj.org/author/ralph-jones-md
[3] https://bcmj.org/node/2214
[4] https://bcmj.org/print/letters/uk-state-pensions
[5] https://bcmj.org/printmail/letters/uk-state-pensions
[6] http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://bcmj.org/print/letters/uk-state-pensions
[7] https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=UK state pensions&url=https://bcmj.org/print/letters/uk-state-pensions&via=BCMedicalJrnl&tw_p=tweetbutton
[8] https://bcmj.org/javascript%3A%3B
[9] http://www.britishpensions.com/
[10] http://www.britpensions.ca/
[11] https://bcmj.org/modal_forms/nojs/webform/176
[12] https://bcmj.org/%3Finline%3Dtrue%23citationpop