With underpayments totaling more than £500 million, thousands of cases involving state pension errors for mothers are still pending review

The DWP has only examined 12,000 of the 194,000 cases it reviewed, showing little progress in examining state pension errors that affect mothers

Could you be owed money? Tens of thousands of cases are still pending review.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has faced criticism for moving slowly to address the second wave of state pension underpayments brought on by mistakes, which affected 200,000 mothers.

Those who took time off to raise a family and claimed child benefit prior to 2000 might have lost out on a larger state pension payment because of the errors, which are related to inaccuracies in National Insurance records.

But according to the most recent data from the DWP, which began reviewing records back in March 2021, only 12,000 of the 200,000 cases have paid arrears.

According to the DWP, efforts to address the issue are expected to continue until 20272028; however, because of the sluggish progress, parentsmostly mothersmay be losing out on thousands of pounds in compensation.

"It is extremely disheartening that efforts to identify mothers who are underpaid their state pension have not yet reached the vast majority of those who the government believes have lost out," stated Steve Webb, a former pensions minister and partner at pension consultants LCP.

These mistakes are merely one type of error. Married women, widows, and people over 80 are among the other groups impacted by administrative errors; the total value of pension errors is 594 million.

Who was impacted by the underpayments in the mothers' pension errors?

Mothers who did not receive home responsibilities protection (HRP) on their National Insurance record are impacted by this batch of state pension underpayments.

In order to guarantee that women who took time off to raise a family would have their pension covered by National Insurance credits, the HRP was established.

Records did not sync, however, as it was discovered that a large number of child benefit claim forms filed between 1978 and 2000 lacked a National Insurance number.

"HMRC has destroyed all of its old child benefit records, so one of the challenges is that they have to go on a fishing expedition, writing to women who might be impacted and encouraging them to submit a claim," Webb stated.

HMRC has, however, occasionally written to very elderly pensioners urging them to visit a website to verify their eligibility prior to filing a claim. They have also requested records and information about children, which parents might not have.

"There was never going to be much success with writing letters to senior citizens that direct them to a two-step online process. Expecting people to complete their own online eligibility check prior to submitting an online claim was bound to turn off a lot of people, who are naturally suspicious of scams, according to Webb.

"Efforts should be doubled to ensure that a greater number of people receive the state pension that should have been theirs by right, even though DWP deserves credit for researching the reasons why the strategy has failed thus far."

DWP must conduct a state pension reassessment after HMRC updates NI records after identifying a potentially eligible woman and receiving a claim form in response.

Only 12,000 mothers who have lost out have received compensation as a result of this process since it began five years ago.

Of the estimated 194,000 impacted, 43,000 have died and about 151,000 are still alive.

We are fixing a problem with the historical recording of HRP on the National Insurance records for individuals who initially claimed Child Benefit prior to May 2000, a government representative previously told BFIA.

"We have an online tool to help people check whether they need to make a claim, and the majority of people's records won't be impacted.

"State pension underpayment rates are extremely low, but we are dedicated to promptly correcting any errors that do occur.

Find out if you are impacted by underpayments on your state pension.

The DWP is required to notify you in writing and send a payment if you have been underpaid.

You might need to find out for yourself, though, as not everyone will receive automatic payments. By using the Pension Service directly, you can verify.

Verify whether you filed for child benefit before 2000 because you might be owed thousands.