Your Age Pension Application
The Age Pension is designed to support you in retirement by providing a basic level of income to help cover everyday essentials.
But with the rising cost of living in Australia, it’s becoming harder and harder for retirees to make ends meet on the full Age Pension alone. For many Australians who are renting, close to and in some cases more than half of their pension can go towards rent payments alone.
As you’ll see in the image below, living solely on the Age Pension can place significant limits on what you’re able to do and enjoy during retirement.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re receiving all the benefits and entitlements available to you. There are a number of strategies that may help increase your Age Pension entitlement, and these are things I regularly help clients with so they can enjoy a more comfortable retirement and improve their overall cash flow.
Below are just a couple of important examples.
Keep your assets and income details updated
Many people apply for the Age Pension at age 67 and then don’t update Centrelink as their circumstances change.
For example, your car may have been worth $30,000 when you first applied five years ago, but today it may only be worth $10,000. If Centrelink still has the old value recorded, you could be assessed as having more assets than you actually do.
In some cases, simply updating your asset values can increase your Age Pension entitlement. A reduction in assessable assets could mean receiving an additional $60 per fortnight under the assets test.
Understand the extra benefits available with your Pensioner Concession Card
Many retirees don’t realise that some concessions and benefits are not automatically applied.
For example, you may be eligible for council rates concessions, utility discounts and other savings, but you often need to apply directly through the relevant provider or local council to receive them.
Making sure you access all available concessions can make a meaningful difference to your retirement income and living costs.
The Age Pension process can be overwhelming
The Age Pension application process is far more complex than most people expect.
For a typical individual or couple with superannuation, an account based pension, a family home, bank accounts, a car and household contents, the application paperwork can already be around 48 pages long.
If you also have a trust, company structure, investment property, or have previously received workers compensation, the process can become even more complicated, with additional forms and supporting documentation required.
On top of that, Centrelink often requests very specific documents, which can sometimes be difficult or time consuming to locate.
How Simply Pension can help
At Simply Pension, we help simplify the Age Pension and Commonwealth Seniors Health Card process by doing the heavy lifting for you.
We take the time to understand your financial position, explain how the Age Pension works in plain English, identify strategies that may help maximise your entitlements, and manage the application process from start to finish.
Most importantly, we deal directly with Centrelink on your behalf, so you don’t have to spend hours on hold trying to speak with a consultant.
Our goal is simple, to help you reduce stress, save time, and maximise your retirement income so you can enjoy a better retirement.
