what does the last letter of your national insurance number signifi?

Answer 1

Absolutely nothing. Its something left over from days of yore.

If you talk about national insurance to wrinklies like me you may hear mention of payment of a national insurance stamp. Back in the good old days when I started work you actually bought a special stamp and stuck it on a card. When the card was full (after a year) it was sent to the national insurance office as proof that you had paid the necessary contributions. They then sent you a further blank card to fill up.

There would have been a terrible bottleneck if, at the end of the tax year, everyone sent their card in. So the period covered by the card was staggered.

Those ending in A covered the year up to the 5th July, those ending in B went up to 5th October and so on. The work of recording and replacing the cards could be spread throughout the year.

The stamps were discontinued a long time ago but it would cause havoc to change the national insurance numbers.