Thousands of pensioners could be owed £9,500 following an error by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The issue is linked to married and or widowed people, and those over the age of 80, who wrongly didn’t have their state pension automatically topped up.
If you reached the state pension age before April 6, 2016, you will be claiming the old basic state pension, which is worth up to £141.85 a week.
To claim this amount, you normally need to have 30 years’ worth of qualifying National Insurance (NI) contributions.
In some cases, people who are married or in a civil partnership may be entitled to increase their state pension allowance based on their husband, wife or civil partner’s National Insurance contributions.
People who reach age 80 and are getting no basic state pension, or a basic state pension less than £85 a week, may also qualify for a top up, reports Nottinghamshire Live.
The DWP has previously estimated it has underpaid 134,000 pensioners, mostly women, more than £1billion of their state pension entitlements.
Some of the errors date back as far back as 1985. Since 2021, the DWP has been taking action to rectify the issue and reunite people with their cash.
Have you received backpay from an underpaid state pension? Let us know: mirror.money.saving@mirror.co.uk
Thousands of people have already been identified as being underpaid but the investigation is still ongoing.
The Government states: “Between January 11, 2021, and February 28, 2022, the checking process has identified 14,239 underpayments."
Between them, the state pensioners are owed £94.3million, according to the DWP, which also broke down the groups which have been impacted.
For married women, the average arrears payment was recorded as £7,399. The total amount repaid in this group - Category BL - in this period was £37.9million.
Over 80s got an average arrears payment of £4,104, and a total amount repaid of £22.5million.
Widowed individuals have received average arrears payments of £9,506, and a total of £33.9million.
Cases are being checked for more than one potential cause of error, meaning someone may be counted in more than one category.
A DWP spokesperson said: "The action we are taking now will correct the historical underpayments that have been made by successive governments and we are fully committed to addressing these as quickly as possible.
"We have set up a dedicated team and devoted significant resources towards completing this, with further resources being allocated throughout 2022 and 2023 towards the underpayments exercise."
There are other cases as well where women may have been underpaid the state pension. See more information here.
If you’re married, retired before April 6 2016, and have a basic weekly state pension of less than £85, visit this online calculator by former pension minister and partner at consultants LCP Steve Webb.
If the calculator indicates that you might have been underpaid or you fall into one of the other groups described, call The Pension Service (0800 731 7898) and ask for your state pension calculation to be reviewed.
