People over State Pension age urged to check for £1,807 annual income boost

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A new report indicates that people over State Pension age are missing out on thousands of pounds of extra income by failing to claim their full entitlement to key means-tested benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Just Group’s 15th annual State Benefits insight report found that eight in 10 (79%) pensioner homeowners were failing to claim any of the benefits they were eligible to receive, missing out on an average of £1,807 a year extra income.

The retirement specialists discovered that nearly one in 10 (9%) pensioners who were claiming were receiving too little, missing out on an additional £2,915 a year, on average.

Stephen Lowe, group communications director at Just Group, said: “Despite the focus on benefit as a result of the UK Government’s decision to axe Winter Fuel Payments to millions, our survey once again shows the scandalous scale of the under-claiming problem.” He continued: “Of the one-third of pensioner homeowners eligible for benefits, the proportion failing to claim remains very high while the amounts unclaimed are larger than for more than a decade.