Frozen pension
Encyclopedia
Frozen occupational pension
Pensions which have been left behind in an occupational pension scheme by people who are no longer employed by the sponsoring employer are "frozen" until retirement age. Frequently, if the amounts are small, the member and the scheme administrators lose touch with each other, and as a result the pension is never claimed.Frozen state pensions
The second meaning refers to the practice of the British government in "freezing" state pensions for pensionerPensioner
In common parlance, a pensioner is a person who has retired, and now collects a pension. This is a term typically used in the United Kingdom and Australia where someone of pensionable age may also be referred to as an 'old age pensioner', or OAP. In the United States, the term retiree is more...
s who live in certain overseas countries. Not all countries are included in the "frozen" list, and there are some strange anomalies. Most Commonwealth
Commonwealth
Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic."More recently it has been used for fraternal associations of some sovereign nations...
countries are included in the frozen list, and some non-Commonwealth, non-European countries are in the list where UK pensioners get the same indexation as pensioners resident in Britain.
All British State pensioners receive their pension based on the level of their compulsory contributions to the National Insurance Fund
National Insurance Fund
The National Insurance Fund represents the funds of the National Insurance Scheme, set up by the British Government following World War II. In the Beveridge Report this was designed as part of a universal insurance system for all British people....
, and as payments are made within the UK they are all at the same level. However, if the beneficiary moves abroad, their level of pension is then dependent upon where they live.
Freezing starts with the first payment received in the frozen country.