Financial expert explains state pension error affecting some carers as well as parents
Anyone affected by a state pension error could be owed money (Image: Shared Content Unit)
Anyone taking time off during a certain time period in order to care for a child or someone with a long-term disability could be owed several thousands of pounds. In this week’s episode of his BBC podcast, financial expert Martin Lewis addressed a past pension error which affected some women between the ages of 40 and 90 who might now be owned money back.
So it could be worth a check for those who took time off work between 1978 and 2010 to look after a child or disabled person, in order to see if they were among those underpaid state pension and therefore entitled to backpay. The error relates to HRP – Home Responsibilities Protection – which reduced the number of qualifying years needed on a person’s National Insurance record to claim the state pension, reports The Mirror.
This was replaced by National Insurance credits in 2010. A National Insurance record determines how much state pension people will receive in later life so, if there are gaps in their record, they may not receive the full amount.
For example, with the new state pension, most people need 35 years of National Insurance contributions to obain the full amount. HRP should have been applied automatically to those claiming Child Benefit but Child Benefit forms submitted before 2000 did not include a National Insurance number.
This led to HRP not being correctly applied to National Insurance records. The same situation could affect those claiming Income Support while caring for someone with a disability or long-term illness.
Flagging the error in his podcast, Mr Lewis, whose MoneySavingExpert website offers wide financial advice, said: “This is an important heads-up about a state pension error that mainly affects women between the ages of 40 and 90, and especially those in their 60s and 70s, because it’s for people who took time off work between 1978 and 2010 to look after their children or to care for someone who is long-term disabled. You were meant to have got a thing called Home Responsibilities Protection, which should have given you National Insurance years to replace the ones you weren’t getting by working – and you need those National Insurance years to get a full state pension.”
Latest figures from HMRC identified 12,379 state pension underpayments related to missing HRP for the period ending March 31, 2025, with an average repayment being made of £8,377, adds The Mirror.
But some people may be owed far more. As well as receiving backpay, their state pension entitlement would be higher going forward too.
Anyone not receiving the full state pension should first check their pension forecast or statement. The full new state pension is worth £230.25 per week, while the old basic state pension is £17.6.45 per week.
Those who think they are missing gaps should then check their National Insurance record and the Government also has created an online checker tool on its website. A claim for missing HRP can be made by using the online service on the Government website or by filling out this form and posting it back to HMRC.
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