Everyone on Universal Credit handed extra £460 with ‘secret’ deals not advertised

People on Universal Credit are being told they can slash £460 a year off their annual bills by making use of ‘secret’ tariffs not offered to customers earning big money.

Deals on ‘social tariffs’ are not usually advertised by companies because they aren’t the lucrative money spinners that a standard customer contract is but every company is obligated to offer one.

Social tariffs are available for both broadband and for water bills, and are usually much cheaper than standard contracts for regular customers.

The details on social tariffs are often squirrelled away deep on websites without a big advertising budget, but they could save you huge amounts of money per year.

Everyone on Universal Credit is likely to be eligible for a social tariff, as well as those on some other types of benefits.

The average monthly broadband bill comes to £25 in the UK, with many rising higher still for faster speeds.

But those on Universal Credit can get a social tariff for as little as £10 a month, a saving of £300 a year.

A BT social tariff is £11.99 up front and then moves to £20 a month while Vodafone offers a social tariff for £9.99 a month up front.

TalkTalk offers a tariff which is not technially a social tariff but is completely free for the first six months for those on Jobseekers on Universal Credit, while Sky offers a Sky Basics line for 36mb speed at £20 a month and throws in a free Sky Mobile SIM with 3GB data.

Water tariffs work in the same way. Those on Universal Credit can approach WaterSure, which is worth an estimated £160 a year to about 5.7M households because it can reduce the amount you pay for water rates by a staggering 90%.

It means that whichever company you're with, whether it's Thames Water, Yorkshire Water or Southern Water, you should be able to claim a social tariff if you're on Universal Credit which could hand you a huge annual saving.