Martin Lewis Money Show: Millions of pensioners missing out on pension credits | Personal Finance | Finance
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Martin Lewis has been providing insightful tips for millions across the UK for years now. The “money saving expert” has covered everything from insurance, bank accounts to taxes in his research. However, it was possible to feel Mr Lewis’s real passion for what he covered in this weeks instalment of The Martin Lewis Money Show.
“Thats the first one, the simple one the guarantee you should get, it’s basically a minimum income guarantee income for pensioners.”
As he moved onto the second part Mr Lewis detailed that it is a bit more complicated. However, for what he did detail, he put in laymen’s terms: “The second element is called the savings credit. In sort of rough terms, if you’ve got some savings they give you credit for that because otherwise there would have been no point in you saving.”
According to the government, savings credit is only available for people who reached stated pension before 6 April 2016, but for those that qualify it can be a rewarding benefit. Single claimants can receive up to £13.73 per week and couples can receive up to £15.35.
Mr Lewis was asked for details on who could qualify for this benefit but he simply said: “no”.
The reason being that it can be a complicated process defining who exactly gets these pension credits, he detailed that the best thing to do is is to call the pension credit helpline and ask them.
When asked for details on the total amount that could be generated he said that it could be around £1,000 a year.
However, as he detailed one of the real reasons to get excited for this benefit is the further “unlocks” claimants can qualify for.
As Mr Lewis detailed, those who received pension credit can also potentially receive a free TV license for over 75s (from June 2020), council tax reductions, warm home discounts, cold weather payments, housing benefits, water discounts, home insulation and boiler cover grants, discounted glasses/contacts and/or free NHS dental treatment.
When adding all of these benefits together there could be further savings of thousands per year.
The government details that there is not to pay on pension credit, further adding to its usefulness. On top of this, they also provide a pension credit calculator to help work out what a claimant might receive.
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