Thousands of people are being urged to claim a state pension payment worth £7,589 that they’re entitled to following an error by the DWP.
As many as nearly 500,000 people have already started the process to reclaim an average of £7,859 each after an issue was identified with missing benefits, with more than 370,000 still being urged to get their money.
According to the DWP’s data, the average pack payment is worth £7,589. HMRC began issuing letters to pensioners after the DWP found that some people’s state pension payments had been incorrectly calculated, due to missing Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) between 1978 and 2010.
In turn, this led to National Insurance errors in their records managed by HMRC.
The DWP and HMRC’s Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) then identified those missing HRP on their records and is still issuing letters to those who could be entitled to money back, urging them to claim.
But you don’t get the money automatically and instead you need to apply via gov.uk.
A total of 493,000 people have already used the online tool to check if they are missing HRP and those who were eligible for a payment will get the money by the end of 2025.
By the end of September, HMRC had processed 37,289 applications from pensioners and 5,428 from those close to pension age and £42m in payments have already been issued.
The DWP says: “Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) reduced the number of qualifying years you needed to get the full basic State Pension by up to 22 years.
“To get a full basic State Pension a woman needed 39 qualifying years and a man 44 qualifying years.
“You may have been entitled to Additional State Pension if you qualified for HRP because you:
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got Child Benefit for a child under the age of 6
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were looking after a sick or disabled person (including a child over the age of 6) who was getting certain benefits”
“To claim Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP), you can apply online or by post. You can also apply to transfer HRP from someone else.”
