frontpage

850,000 Households Missing Out On Pension Credit

image / pixabay

Chair of Pension Playpen and pension industry veteran, Henry Tapper, and Gareth Morgan, CEO of Ferret Information Systems, Europe’s largest welfare benefits adviser, have issued a rallying call for support for their ‘Pension Credit – it’s for you!’ campaign.

The campaign has today published its first paper which focuses on ‘‘Who are the 850,000 households and how can the private sector help?’- a prequel to a more formal feasibility study requested by the Minster of Pensions and Financial Inclusion, Guy Opperman. The campaign can also today confirm its first supporters, Virgin Money, Inbest.ai, Policy in Practice, Independent Age and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

Pension Credit is the ‘door to more benefits.

The ‘Pension Credit – its for you!’ campaign is a private sector initiative which aims to increase participation and automation of Pension Credit and capture the imagination of key influencers, those who hold data and the organisations that manage the later life finance of UK citizens. In the short term, the aim is for the private sector to help identify customers with limited savings and private income and in the longer term, for it to help DWP automate the process so that Pension Credit is paid alongside the State Pension to those who are eligible.

Henry Tapper

Henry Tapper, Chair of Pension Playpen said:
“This is a rallying call to the UK’s key influencers, the charities, the banks, the insurers, the pension trusts, the utilities and other services supporting pensioners to support the ‘Pension Credit – it’s for you!’ campaign

“Around 1 in 3 eligible households are currently being failed. These people are missing out on £1.7bn of much needed, unclaimed ‘free money’ that is Pension Credit. With the current cost of living crisis, the sense of urgency couldn’t be greater.

“Who are these people? That’s what we plan to find out. Many will have no idea that Pension Credit even exists. Many are women. Some may be income poor and housing rich and feel they won’t be eligible, but you can’t buy a sausage with a brick.

“What’s more, Pension Credit is the ‘door to more’, topping up what people get from the state to a level approximate to the full State Pension, whilst unlocking many smaller State Pension benefits to get help with housing, fuel, and even free TV licences.

“So far, the private sector has been reluctant to use its money and the data it holds to ensure pensions are topped up. With the backing of the Pensions Minister we aim to get as many organisations and supporters on board to help these 850,000 households access the money and other support they will likely desperately need.”

‘Pension Credit – its for you!’ Campaign’s Three Step Plan to ‘make it happen’

Step one – Use what is available today better.
Step two – plan for tomorrow’s technology – The pension dashboard will deliver business as usual by 2025.Set to be used by many pensioners whether they are saving or not, this could offer the means to flag potential “free money”.
Step three – fully automate the Pension Credit application - Where it is likely that an application would be successful, the pension dashboard could ask an applicant for permission to find further data necessary for the completion of the task so that Pension Credit would find its customer, rather than the other way round.

Gareth Morgan

Gareth Morgan, CEO of Ferret Information Systems, said:
“Organisations as different as Virgin Media, Ferret, Inbest.ai and Policy in Practice are showing that the private sector can offer solutions through data analysis. But they only touch the tip of the iceberg.
“The capacity of organisations such as the high street banks and auto-enrolment master trusts to analyse millions of records is an untouched resource. What is needed to motivate private sector companies to use this capability? Let’s call it “enlightened self-interest”: it is to the benefit of all that those customers are happy, but all too often, the “in-house” solution is the only one considered. But open banking and open pensions are designed to open doors to wider benefits, just as Pension Credit is the ‘door to more benefits.”

“Pension Credit - it’s for you!” is a campaign started by Henry Tapper and Gareth Morgan. Its aim is to make the private sector part of the solution both by identifying and promoting Pension Credit to target groups of customers and by employing its expertise to make claiming this means tested benefit a lot easier.

The first paper focusing on ‘Who are the 850,000 households and how can the private sector help?’ is the prequel to a more formal feasibility study requested by the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion - Guy Opperman - which will look at what the private sector can do to accelerate the take up of Pension Credit and the automation of the application and checking process for this means tested benefit. It is a private pensions initiative being led by Pension Playpen.

For more information or to support the campaign, please get in touch with Henry Tapper; henry@pensionplaypen.com.