State pension claimants need at least 10 year of National Insurance contributions to receive income. There can be variation in what’s paid out if the person has between 10 years and 35 years of contributions.
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Pension savings can be accessed before age 55 under these conditions
To receive the “full” amount a claimant needs a minimum of 35 years of contributions.
If they have achieved this, they’ll receive £175.20 per week from their state pension, which equates to just over £9,000 a year.
Claimants will be able to get their payments once they reach state pension age which is currently 65 for most people but this is being increased by the government.
If a claimant reaches their retirement age and feels that their state pension won’t provide enough income, they can take certain steps to increase it.
State pensions are not paid automatically, they will need to be claimed.
If they’re not claimed they will automatically be deferred and deferring a state pension could actually boost its payments.
So long as a state pension is deferred (delayed) by a minimum of nine weeks, the payments will increase.
It will increase by the equivalent of one percent for every nine weeks of deferment according to the government.
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They detailed that this works out at just under 5.8 percent for every 52 weeks of deferment.
The extra amount will be paid with regular state pension payments.
A state pension can be boosted in this way even if the claimant already qualifies for the “full” amount.
To illustrate, if a person who qualifies for £175.20 a week defers for 52 weeks, they’ll get an extra £10.16 per week.
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This does not factor in annual increases under the triplelock system, meaning the payments could be even higher than this.
People who reached state pension age before April 6 2016 could get even more generous boosts.
According to the government, state pensioners in this circumstance could boost their payments by as much as 10.4 percent for every 52 weeks of deferment.
A state pension will continue to be deferred until the person involved is ready to claim it.
It’s also possible to boost state pension payments by making voluntary National Insurance contributions.
A person can check on their National Insurance record online and if there are gaps in their history, they may be able to pay class two or class three contributions to fill up the gaps.
However, it should be noted that this cannot be done for free and voluntary class two contributions will cost a person £3.05 a week.
Class three contributions have a charging rate of £15.30 a week.
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