As solicitors specialised in supporting older and vulnerable clients, we would like to bring to your attention a new website launched by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which allows next of kin to make claims for underpaid state pensions.
It’s estimated that around 134,000 people had been underpaid and are owed around £1bn. By the time the issue had been discovered, many of these people had died.
Until now there has been no easy way for those who believe their deceased family member was underpaid to make sure DWP had their contact details and knew who to pay, in the event of an error being found.
After pressure from campaigners, DWP has produced a user-friendly website to be used by the next of kin of those who believe that a deceased family member was underpaid state pension.
This comes too late to benefit the person who was underpaid but at least their family will receive some compensation for the error.