Nearly half of people over State Pension age failing to claim up to £3,000 in DWP benefits

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Cash-strapped older homeowners of 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 delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), according to a new report by Just Group.

The charity’s twelfth annual State Benefits insight report found that of pensioner homeowners entitled to receive benefits, nearly half (49%) were failing to claim with each household missing out on an average of £1,197 a year extra income.

Two in 10 (21%) who were claiming were receiving too little, on average missing out on £1,220 a year income.Stephen Lowe, group communications director at retirement specialist Just Group, said: “Every year we find meaningful income that would make a real difference to people’s lives is not being claimed.“The proportion eligible for a benefit is trending lower but more of those people are failing to claim.

It raises serious questions about why people in most need of support are not receiving what is rightly theirs.”The research is based on in-depth fact-finding interviews with clients seeking advice on equity release during 2021.It shows nearly one in four (24%) were entitled to benefits and of those, nearly half (49%) were not claiming anything and two in 10 (21%) were claiming too little.