Martin Lewis urges people to claim 'huge' state pension top-up - see if you can

04 February 2023 , 07:00

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The Money Saving Expert shared how you could do it on the recent episode of the Martin Lewis Money Show (Image: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Martin Lewis shared how grandparents could claim a “little-known” credit which could add thousands of pounds to their state pension payments.

The Money Saving Expert has shared details on how older Brits, who are currently looking after grandchildren or have done so at any point since 2011, can boost their state pension pots.

On a recent episode of the Martin Lewis Money Show, Martin Lewis explained what Specified Adult Childcare Credits were and how you could benefit from them.

Martin shared with his viewers how state pension payments can be boosted by moving the National Insurance credit attached to Child Benefit from the Child Benefit recipient to another family member.

However, this family member has to be providing care for a related child under the age of 12 years, or 17 if they have a disability.

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You are allowed to transfer them if the child’s parent, or main carer, does not need the National Insurance credits which come from their claim to child benefit.

However, the Money Saving Expert shared how parents also benefit from this too.

He explained that the parent won’t miss out because as long as they are working and earning enough, they will get National Insurance credits through their employment.

He added: “If you’ve got gaps in your National Insurance, it can massively boost your state pension once you get into retirement by thousands of pounds over the rest of your life.”

Martin warned that you cannot get the credits if you’re already at State Pension age.

However, he explained: “If you are at state pension age and you don’t get the full pension and you did childcare before you hit State Pension age then you can backdate it.”

You can backdate a claim until 2011 which means those who have provided some form of care for younger family members over the last decade can get this pension boost.

Specifically, Martin highlighted that if your usual childcare arrangements changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, you cared for a child by phone or video calls, you can still apply for credits for the 2019 to 2020 and the 2020 to 2021 tax years.

One viewer called Rosemary contacted the Martin Money Show to share her success story of boosting her state pension payments.

Rosemary wrote: “I was alerted to this a few years ago by you. I managed to get credits for three full years which is enough to give me a full state pension, due to start in a couple of weeks.

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“The process was quite simple and confirmation quite quick. Well worth the bit of effort. Thanks.”

Ruby Flanagan