Have you received a DWP letter about underpaid state pension? It is vital to respond, says Steve Webb

Around 1,800 people could miss out on their state pension because they have not yet responded to government letters about money they owe to their deceased parents or partners.

The amounts owed can range from a few pounds to over £100,000. But if the recipients don’t come forward, they’ll never know and the government will keep the money.

“In thousands of cases, the person who was underpaid is sadly no longer with us, but their heirs should still benefit,” said Steve Webb, pensions columnist for This is Money.

Through a request under the Government Information (Public Access) Act, he discovered how many people had not yet responded to the letters.

Many older married women and widows, and both men and women over 80, were underpaid by more than £1 billion in a state pension scandal exposed by Webb and This is Money.

Therefore, the Department of Work and Pensions is trying to contact those affected and make the arrears payments to them, and also trying to make the arrears payments to their beneficiaries, if they have already passed away.

In another Tax and Customs Administration blunder we mentioned earlier, many mothers missed out on large amounts of state pension due to gaps in their National Insurance information. The Tax and Customs Administration is responsible for contacting these people.

> Did you or a deceased family member receive too little state pension? Read below what you need to do

The DWP letter writing campaign has led to frustrations over delays and further errors. Families who do respond to letters can be left in uncertainty about their entitlement to benefits for months.

Three cases we recently investigated resulted in separate payouts of £3,800 and £27, as well as apologies for a letter being sent by mistake.

The initial letter does not state how much has been underpaid, as this is only calculated after the DWP has received a response.

This leaves recipients of letters in the dark about the amounts they will receive.

But as long as they do respond, their arrears should eventually be paid and not withheld by the government.

Webb, a former pensions minister and now a partner at consultancy LCP, said his Freedom of Information Act request revealed that 1,859 people had received letters from the DWP about possible state pension underpayments but had not responded by the end of July.

The vast majority of cases are where the deceased was a widow or widower. About 1,671 survivors have not yet responded, he says.

In 131 other cases, a married woman’s pension was not automatically increased when her husband retired, and in 57 cases, underpayments were made to people aged 80 and over.

According to Webb, the letters are coming “out of the blue” to people who may not realize how important it is to respond.

He says that if someone is afraid of being scammed and is therefore reluctant to send back personal information, they can check if the address matches the DWP contact details can be found here on the gov.uk website.

That link also contains a phone number you can call if you have concerns and want to know if the letter is authentic.

Webb urges people to check if they have received a letter and take action if they are delaying responding, otherwise they may be sitting on a ‘goldmine’ that is going unused.

“We know that over 100,000 people have been underpaid their state pension and DWP has been working to track these people down for over three years,” he said.

‘While not all underpayments are large, in some cases people have received £100,000 or more, so the recipients of these letters could be sitting on a pension goldmine.

‘If you have received a letter from DWP about a possible underpayment to a loved one, I urge you to respond as soon as possible.’