pension credit while on pip

Hello and welcome to the community, sorry but I think you cannot claim the past unpaid years of NI contributions unless you wish or can afford to pay the missed years. If you are claiming ESA you are credited your NI payments as if you where in full time employment. You can go on government pension forcast site or ring up for a pension forecast which is sent out in the post to you after you have answered a few information questions. Using the web site is a bit of a bind with user codes ect.

road2ruin,
You can't claim Pension Credit until you reach Pension Credit age (which is pension age for a woman - by the end of the year, this will be the same for everyone). 

Pension Credit does NOT rely on national insurance contributions, but your state pension does.

If you've been claiming ESA or UC then you may have got credits for limited capability for work. If you haven't been claiming ESA, it's not too late to make a 'credits only' claim (if there's some reason you can't actually get the benefit). 

The first step, as others have suggested, is to use the pension forecast tool. Then if you are not getting national insurance credits at the moment, think about getting them (either via benefits or by a 'credits only' claim for ESA). You can get credits for limited capability for work backdated quite a long way, so this is well worth doing. You can also explain why you didn't apply for the credits before and you may get them backdated even further.

You can pay voluntary contributions for missing years, but check first how much is missing and whether you qualify for national insurance credits instead, and how far back you can get them.

Finally, as others have suggested, it's not always worth paying voluntary contributions -it may not make a big difference to your pension. And if your state pension isn't very high and you're on PIP, you stand a good chance of getting some Pension Credit on top (try the benefits calculator once you know what level your pension is going to be). 

Will

atlas46 said:

Hi

Importantly, you would be entitled to the severe disabilty premium, because of your PIP award, which is £64 per week on top of your pension credit.

This would only be possible if the other person lived alone, or was classed as living alone and no one claimed Carers Allowance for looking after them. If they live with a partner, then the partner must also claim a qualifying benefit to be able to claim the SDP.