Retirement ‘trick’ could boost your state pension payments by £3,000 – how to claim | Personal Finance | Finance

One of the reasons someone may be missing National Insurance contributions is if they are looking after a loved one.

According to research carried out by PensionBee, 20 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds give unpaid care to their grandchildren.

As such, thousands of future retirees are at risk of losing out on a sizable boost to their retirement pot.

In order to be eligible for this support, recipients must be under the state pension age, be looking after a child under 12 years old or 17 if they have disabilities and live in the UK.

It should be noted that someone can only be eligible if the child’s parent is entitled to child benefit and has a qualifying year for National Insurance without needing the parent’s class 3 credits.

Furthermore, there is no minimum requirement for the number of hours of care a claimant has to have provided. However, how much someone gets depends on how long they have been looking after the child.

Hypothetically, if a grandparent looked after a child from 2011, which is the last year claims can be backdated, they would get a £3,000 state pension boost.

Every annual credit is worth 1/35th of the state pension which comes to around £275 a year. To find out how much will get, multiply this figure by how many years you are eligible for.

Claimants can start their application using the form on the Government’s website.

Speaking to The Sun, PensionBee’s director of Public Affairs Becky O’Connor urged people to check if they are entitled to this retirement boost.

She explained: “These grandparents play an essential role in enabling parents to work, particularly amid the difficulties of finding affordable childcare. However, it can over time negatively impact their ability to build up a pension pot.

“Therefore, it’s imperative that working-age grandparents, who provide care to children under the age of 12, are aware of their eligibility to claim Specified Adult Childcare credit.”

“These are National Insurance credits that are transferred from the working parents, who are claiming child benefit, to the non-working grandparents doing childcare.”