State Pension: It’s possible to inherit a spouse’s payments under these circumstances

State pension amounts are based on a claimants individual circumstances and what happens with other people’s retirement assets has little bearing on their own. So long as a claimant is of state pension age and has a minimum of 10 years of national insurance contributions, they will be able to claim it as they wish.

It’s also possible to inherit half of a partner’s protected payment if their marriage or civil partnership with them began before April 6 2016 and their state pension age is on or after that date and they also died from April 6 2016.

If a partner dies while they were deferring their state pension or they had started claiming it after deferring, it will be possible to inherit part of their extra state pension or lump sum.

Once a state pension (or part of one) has been inherited it will be unlikely that the receiver will be able to change its amount as the new state pension is based on individual National Insurance records.

It’s possible to receive qualifying years if a person is not working so long as they hit other criteria.

People will get National Insurance “credits” if they claim Child Benefit for a child under 12 years old.

On top of this, they may also get the credits if they get certain state benefits like Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance or Carer’s Allowance.

If a person does not have enough National Insurance credits to get a state pension, or if their state pension is lower than they’d like, they may be able to top up their record by making voluntary contributions.

Voluntary payments will be paid through either class two or class three contributions.

Individuals who choose tom make voluntary contributions will be charges to do so and currently, class two contributions will be charged £3.05 a week and for class three is will be £15.30