State pension alert for women with husbands aged 80 and over

Older women receive nearly £1.5bn in arrears of state pension benefits after decades of being shortchanged by the Department for Work and Pensions

Several hundreds of thousands of older women could be permanently stuck with the wrong AOW benefit because they are not covered by an extensive government correction scheme.

Some women with younger husbands are being paid large sums of money following a £1.5bn state pension underpayment scandal exposed by This is Money and former Pensions Minister Steve Webb.

But those whose husbands have reached state pension age for a crucial rule change on March 17, 2008 – and are therefore now aged 80 or over – are urged to check if they are being underpaid, and if so, proactively submit claims to the Department of Work and Pensions.

This is because they will not be contacted as part of the wider delinquent arrangement, although we have stated the need to do so since we uncovered widespread underpayments in 2020.

The women who come forward and miss out are given a lump sum payment for 12 months and proper state pension payments in the future, typically £85 a week – but not a full back payment for all the years lost like other underpaid women.

Webb has found that there are “little hundreds of thousands” of older married women in this position, whom the DWP has no intention of contacting, from an obscure government document provided to an appeals tribunal.

A DWP spokesman said: ‘Our priority is to ensure that pensioners receive the financial support they are entitled to and the actions we are taking now will correct the historic underpayments of successive governments.

“As confirmed by a court last year, married women whose husbands have reached state pension age after them but before March 17, 2008, are legally required to apply for an increase in their state pension.”

The DWP released an update on its wider correction scheme last week, which revealed that just over 46,000 people have received payments totaling £300m to date, out of 237,000 who owe an estimated £1.46bn.

Webb says progress towards this goal has been slow and the DWP still has “a billion pound mountain to climb” to identify and rectify underpayments.

Shockingly, the government knows that hundreds of thousands of older married women could have higher pensions, but has done nothing to make them aware of it in the 15 or more years since their husbands retired.

Meanwhile, he issued a warning to the many older married women who will not be contacted, and encouraged them to do so check here if they might be missing out on state pension using a tool on his company’s website.

You can contact the DWP here about an application for AOW correction.

Webb, who is now a partner at LCP and a columnist for This is Money’s pensions, says: ‘The affected group consists of married women who currently receive less than the standard 60 per cent ‘married women’ rate’ of the basic pension (£85 a week). ) but whose spouse is now 80 or older (thus turning 65 before March 17, 2008 – 15 years ago).

A higher state pension may be available to these women (the full rate of £85 for married women, assuming the husband has a full basic pension of £141.85), but only if they claim it.

‘Because many of these women do not know what they are entitled to, they still receive a reduced state pension.

Why do some women receive an underpaid state pension?

An estimated 237,000 women have received underpaid state pensions in a £1.5 billion scandal uncovered in 2020 by Steve Webb and This is Money.

The huge bill is the result of some women’s benefits not being increased when their husbands reach state pension age or die, or when they themselves reach the age of 80.

We’ve reported many stories of women receiving payouts of tens of thousands of pounds – and in a few cases over £100,000 – after being deprived of the correct state pension due to DWP errors.

Have you received too little state pension? Find out what to do here.

“And according to DWP, there is no ‘mistake’ in these cases because the women in question simply did not claim what they are entitled to.”

Webb and This is Money are still campaigning to have this “before 2008” group of married women pay full arrears on their missing state pensions, such as those from women with younger husbands.

We have argued that women should not be expected to know that they will have to file a second state pension application in order to receive a payment increase when their husbands reach state pension age.

The DWP says that when approaching state pension age, men received an extra claim form, so that their wives could possibly claim the supplement.

However, none of the many affected women we’ve spoken to over the years, nor their husbands, remember receiving a second claim form at that time.

Webb, who is currently helping several women file a ‘maladministration’ complaint, says: ‘Complaints have already been received by DWP and several have been considered by DWP’s Independent Case Examiner. The first have now been submitted to the parliamentary ombudsman.’

News that there are “little hundreds of thousands” of older married women in this position emerged in an Upper Tribunal to which Webb presented documentary evidence.

The case was brought by a woman who found out late that she could have received a higher amount for years if she had submitted a second AOW application after her husband had also retired.

However, Webb says the judge ruled that the legal position was that a second claim was required in these cases, and therefore the decision to limit the retroactive effect to 12 months was legally correct.

What did the DWP reveal at the tribunal?

A disclosure by a member of staff was submitted as evidence by the DWP to an appeals body. The ‘LEAP’ exercise is the correction scheme to compensate underpaid women.

1679734021 476 State pension alert for women with husbands aged 80 and

Webb says: ‘It is shocking that the government knows that hundreds of thousands of older married women could have higher pensions, but has done nothing to make them aware of it in the 15 or more years since their husbands retired.

“I would encourage any married woman with a husband over 80 and on a basic pension of less than £85 a week to consider whether she might be entitled to a higher pension.”

On the progress of the correction exercise, Webb added: ‘It is vital that the Department commit additional resources to ensure that large numbers of people are urgently transferred to the correct pension rate.

These women have been abandoned on a massive scale and need a solution ASAP

Helen Morrissey, Hargreaves Lansdown

“With the current cost-of-living crisis, it’s hard enough for the elderly to cope without living on a pension that’s too low due to some official error.”

Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, agreed with Webb that there is still a ‘mountain to climb’ in tackling state pension underpayments.

“It is clear that this is a situation that will not be resolved quickly and meanwhile thousands of pensioners are getting less than they are entitled to,” she says.

‘The problem mainly affects women who retire under the old state pension system. Some were unaware of the problem, but many who questioned the problem with DWP over the years were told there was no problem with the result that many had to endure real financial hardship.

“These women have been abandoned on a massive scale and need a solution as soon as possible.”

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