Under DWP guidance, you do not get your state pension automatically – you have to claim it.
State pensioners who missed letter in post over past two months handed ‘extra’ £694
The Department for Work and Pensions has urged state pensioners to check for letters sent in the past two months – or risk missing out on cash. Under DWP guidance, you do not get your state pension automatically – you have to claim it.
You should get a letter no later than two months before you reach state pension age, telling you what to do, the DWP has advised. Under its rules, the DWP states: “If you want to defer, you do not have to do anything.
“Your pension will automatically be deferred until you claim it.” As long as you defer for at least nine weeks, then your weekly state pension will increase. For every 9 weeks you defer, you’ll get an extra 1%, which is around an extra £2.30 a week.
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If you defer for a full year, you get 5.8% extra, which is £13.35 a week. Money Saving Expert, the BBC and ITV star Martin Lewis’ team, says: “On current figures, a one year deferral would net you an extra £694 a year on your state pension, for life.
“Yet, do note that to get this, you’ll have given up £11,978 in state pension that you could have claimed in the first year.
“In general, if you defer for any amount of time, you’d need to live for around 20 years after taking your state pension to even out the amounts… which is around the time an average 66 year old is expected to live.
“This is very relevant to the choice of whether to defer. If you’re in poor health and worried about life expectancy, then deferring isn’t likely to help as you’re less likely to hit the 20-year breakeven point.
“Yet if you’re in good health and feel reasonably confident about your life expectancy, then you might beat the odds and profit.
“There’s no crystal ball on this.”