Martin Lewis has urged savers not to miss out on the chance to add up to £221 a week to their state pension – and it comes as an important deadline approaches.
On Tuesday night’s episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV1, the money guru explained that anyone who has worked for over 10 years and who has earned more than £6,396 a year is eligible to receive a state pension.
The maximum potential value, £221.20 a week, is not given out automatically but is based on whether you have a full record or not.
Any employee earning over £6,396 a year receives national insurance (NI) credit at the end of the year. You need to have worked for at least 10 years to be eligible to receive a state pension.
Mr Lewis said on his show: “You get the full state pension at 35 years.”
But he warned: “It is not 35 years for everyone, it can be a lot more.
“Once you get to your full contribution amount, then you get the state pension – £221.20 a week.”
All citizens under the age of 73 have until April 5 to boost their state pension amounts for retirement.
This leaves just you few weeks to top up your pension pot by as much as £50,000, as the deadline to ‘buy back’ any missing national insurance years from 2006 to 2018 approaches.
‘Buying’ one of these costs £824, but there is a healthy return on this investment. Each year filled will result in an extra £328 a year in state pension pre-tax.
This means you will get the £824 back in under three years.
If you lived even an average life expectancy, that could be as much as £70,000 or more paid out to you on top of your normal pension payouts if you bought back all 13 missing years before the deadline passes.
In some instances, savers may only need to top up a year by small amounts to fill it. But just by paying a small amount, you can boost yearly retirement age income by hundreds of pounds.
Those already set to receive the maximum £220.21 amount won’t need to take action.
This week, the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed it had given applicants extra time to apply by adding a ‘request a callback’ form to its website. That means if you can’t get through to the Pension Service (if you’re a pensioner now) or the Future Pensions Service (if you haven’t retired yet), you could still buy back years after the deadline has passed if they call you back later.
However, many people are missing past NI years due to having a low income, not claiming credits correclty, having a career break or working abroad.
Martin said: “Getting those back… that is what can be worth tens of thousands of pounds.”
The money expert stressed that this is “urgent” as the state pension top-up deadline approaches.
