{"id":30781,"date":"2025-04-18T17:35:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T17:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30781\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T17:35:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T17:35:35","slug":"state-pensioners-told-missing-letter-on-doormat-will-hand-them-extra-694","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30781\/","title":{"rendered":"State pensioners told missing letter on doormat will hand them &#8216;extra&#8217; \u00a3694"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Under DWP guidance, you do not get your state pension automatically &#8211; you have to claim it.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_hmrc13.jpg\" alt=\"State pensioners who missed letter in post over past two months handed 'extra' \u00a3694\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>State pensioners who missed letter in post over past two months handed &#8216;extra&#8217; \u00a3694<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The Department for Work and Pensions has urged state pensioners to check for letters sent in the past two months &#8211; or risk missing out on cash. Under <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/dwp\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">DWP<\/a> guidance, you do not get your state pension automatically &#8211; you have to claim it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">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: \u201cIf you want to defer, you do not have to do anything.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;Your pension will automatically be deferred until you claim it.\u201d As long as you defer for at least nine weeks, then your weekly state pension will increase. For every 9 weeks you defer, you&#8217;ll get an extra 1%, which is around an extra \u00a32.30 a week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \"><a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/uk-faces-first-snow-april-31416243\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">READ MORE UK faces first snow of April with flurries and -7C &#8216;lasting three days&#8217;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">If you defer for a full year, you get 5.8% extra, which is \u00a313.35 a week. Money Saving Expert, the <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/bbc\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC<\/a> and <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/itv\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">ITV<\/a> star Martin Lewis&#8217; team, says: &#8220;On current figures, a one year deferral would net you an extra \u00a3694 a year on your state pension, for life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;Yet, do note that to get this, you&#8217;ll have given up \u00a311,978 in state pension that you could have claimed in the first year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;In general, if you defer for any amount of time, you&#8217;d need to live for around 20 years after taking your state pension to even out the amounts&#8230; which is around the time an average 66 year old is expected to live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;This is very relevant to the choice of whether to defer. If you&#8217;re in poor health and worried about life expectancy, then deferring isn&#8217;t likely to help as you&#8217;re less likely to hit the 20-year breakeven point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;Yet if you&#8217;re in good health and feel reasonably confident about your life expectancy, then you might beat the odds and profit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">&#8220;There&#8217;s no crystal ball on this.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under DWP guidance, you do not get your state pension automatically &#8211; you have to claim it.State pensioners&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[192,51,1267,474,208,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-30781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dwp","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-itv","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114360177304319468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}