Finance expert Martin Lewis has revealed “life-changing” advice on how Britons can get their full state pension when they retire.
On an episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live, he explained that missing National Insurance years means people will not get their full pension.
However, there is an opportunity to make up certain missing years via voluntary National Insurance contributions, the deadline for which has just been extended to April 2025.
Speaking on his show on Tuesday night, Mr Lewis said: "You need to check if you’re missing national insurance record to see if you have missing years.
"If you’re missing national insurance years, then you need to check your state pension forecast and whether you can improve your forecast.
"If you have a shortfall, you need to ask whether it is worth buying years - if you’re aged 45 to 70, it’s actually more for people aged 50 but ive lowered it a little, you should consider whether you need to add on years."
He added: "You can either in some cases get some National Insurance years for free, or you will pay up to £800-ish for a National Insurance year.
"For some people, it could be a lot cheaper than that and for each year you buy if you don’t have the full state pension, it will add £250 a year to your pension.
"So you pay £800, it adds to £250 a year, the break-even point is three years."
Mr Lewis said that people can check to see whether they are on track to get a full state by visiting gov.uk to view what NI years they are missing.
And although the deadline for people to fill their missing years has been extended, Mr Lewis urged people to get their pensions in order as quickly as possible.
He said the quicker people do this the quicker they will gain.
