If you claimed child benefit before the year 2000 you may be missing a protection from your national insurance record that could affect your state pension
Those looking after children and caring for the sick or disabled need to make a claim now, if eligible, due to an administrative error. Older parents and carers are being urged once again to check if they are missing a protection on their national insurance that could mean they have or will be underpaid on their state pension. The error could have affected thousands of claimants.
Child Benefit claim forms submitted before 2000 did not include a national insurance number so the Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) they those that were entitled may not have been carried across. HPR allowed parents and carers to build up their entitlement to the state pension when they had to take time off work to look after children or care for other family members.
If HRP is missing from your records you may be entitled to a higher pension than you are currently due or are receiving because the protection reduced the number of years you need to claim the benefit. It was replaced by national insurance credits in 2010 for those eligible. After first issuing the warning in December, HMRC has once again urged older parents or carers who may be affected to check their records. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, it stated: “If you claimed #ChildBenefit before May 2000, you may be missing Home Responsibility Protection (HRP) from your National Insurance record. Claiming now may increase your #StatePension. Complete our eligibility checker and see if you can claim.”
If you’re one of those affected by the error, you could be owed around £5,000, with the DWP expecting to pay out more than £1billion in arrears. HMRC is in the process of tracking down more than 180,000 pensioners who may have been underpaid – but it is estimated 43,000 of those affected are now deceased. In this case, their family will be able to make a claim for any money owed.
How do I check if I’ve been underpaid?
The main rules for qualifying for a year of HRP from 1978 are:
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You had to be receiving child benefit in your own name (not that of a spouse or partner)
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Your child was under 16 for the whole of the financial year in question
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You were not paying the married woman’s ‘reduced stamp’
If you suspect you have missed out, you should first check your state pension and your National Insurance record . For those who reached pension age after April 5, 2010, any year of HRP/credits should be showing as a complete year on your National Insurance record. If not, then you may have missed out. The Government has also created an online checker tool on GOV.UK to see if you’re likely to be eligible to make a claim.