Martin Lewis is urging older women claiming their State Pension to check if they are due an underpayment as a result of a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) systems error. The latest update from the DWP on the correction exercise looking into this historical error shows that between January 2021 and February 2023, some 46,716 pensioners were owed a total of £300.1 million.
In the latest edition of the MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE.com) newsletter, the consumer champion explained: “Hundreds of thousands of married or now divorced/widowed women on the 'old' State Pension (those who hit state pension age before 2017) are due big bucks due to pension system errors, mainly as they didn't get the cut of their husbands' pensions due”.
It is estimated that as many as 237,000 pensioners have been underpaid around £1.46 billion. The issue largely affects women who did not receive the State Pension payment they were entitled to under their husband’s National Insurance record, other women did not get uplifts to their weekly payments that they were entitled to when their husbands died.
