Martin Lewis was keen to dish out pension credit warning advice as he appeared on Wednesday's edition of Good Morning Britain.
The Money Saving Expert spoke to hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley live from his home in London as he advised viewers on how to find out if they qualify for pension credit.
Richard started the conversation by saying: "So Martin, what we're saying is that there is money out there to be picked up that people simply don't know that they're entitled to?"
Martin replied: "Yeah it is a national tragedy that up to one million pensioners are missing out on this rather substantial entitlement in many cases.
"Many of those pensioners of course have been paying into the system for years. What pension credit is meant to do is to top people's income up so that if their state pension and other income isn't enough, that they have a reasonable standard of living."
He continued: "For one of those reasons, this has been tricky for a long
time to get people to claim. Now I often don't join in with government campaigns but in a meeting with the pensions minister about this, I volunteered that I would agree to get out there and start talking about this today.
"If you are of state pension age, which is effectively age 66 or over now, and you have total income under £200 a week then I would absolutely get in touch with the pension credit system either online or call the pension credit claim line and ask, 'Am I due money?'"
Martin then added: "It's absolutely worth five minutes to check because the average payout on this, average, is £3,300 a year, and it doesn't stop there. I call pension credit a 'gateway benefit' because if you're entitled to the main element, then it also means you're entitled to a host of other things."
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV and ITV Hub.
