Britons urged to use online tool to boost state pension after DWP 'errors'
Experts have uncovered another state pension error
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Britons are being urged to use an online tool from Lane, Clark & Peacock (LCP) to determine if they have been underpaid their state pension entitlement.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is in the process of carrying out a correction exercise to address prior pension errors but many older Britons face missing out on payments.
What is the state pension 'error'
A former pensions minister has uncovered a new group of cases where the DWP appears to be making further state pension errors.
In this situation, those affected were claiming the new, full amount while already being widowed once reaching retirement age.
Four separate people reached out to Sir Steve Webb who had not been awarded any inherited state pension once retired.
Each of these individuals had been informed by the DWP they were not entitled, which is incorrect, and arrears have been paid to the DWP.
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Sir Steve Webb is urging pensioners to use LCP's latest tool
LCPWhat is the tool?
Due to the complexity of the inherited pension rules, LCP has created a helpful online tool to assist people in understanding how much they should be able to inherit.
On the consultancy firm's website, older people will be asked for their personal information, as well as their partners, so the online tool can learn any vital information.
Among these questions will be what sex each partner is, birthdays and whether the partner is still alive. If someone's partner is dead, the date they died will need to be shared.
Using this information, LCP's tool will send over a breakdown of a user's likely inherited state pension entitlement.
Who was affected by the state pension error?
The group most impacted by these errors are widows and widowers who claim their state pension and their partner either reached pension age before April 6, 2016, or died before this date.
For pensioners in this situation, the widow or widower can potentially inherit at least 50 per cent of any "additional state pension" which the late spouse built up, plus 50 per cent of any "Graduated Retirement Benefit".
However, the amount someone claims from an inherited pension will be dependent on circumstances but will be greater if the late partner was an employee and the widow/widower is not getting a widow's pension.
Sir Steve, partner at LCP, urged Britons to take advantage of the firm's latest online tool.
He explained: "Having had to spend years checking hundreds of thousands of historic state pension calculations for errors, you would hope that DWP would be making sure that new claims are handled correctly.
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Widows could be getting underpaid their state pension
PEXELS"But we have found worrying evidence that this is not the case. There seems to be a particular problem for people who are widows or widowers when they claim their state pension.
"In some cases, DWP seems to have failed to automatically add any inherited state pension they were due from a late partner.
"These cases may well be the tip of an iceberg, with many thousands of people potentially underpaid.
"The Department needs to launch an urgent investigation into the scale of this problem. In the meantime, I hope that our new online tool will help people to check what they are entitled to and to report any errors."