Compensation will it affect my benefit payments?

Question

i am going to be receiving a compensation payment. I am on incapacity benefit. Will the amount I receive affect my benefit payments is there a max amount?

im in uk

Answer 1

Your payments of Incapacity will continue as normal and in the usual way. Incapacity Benefit is a contribution based benefit based on National Insurance contributions only. It is not means tested and does not take into account any capital or savingss you have. If you were getting a means tested benefit like Income Support or housing benefit taht would be affected in some circumstances by compensastion payments, but Incapacity Benefit is not.

(your award is actually offset against the benefit yiu have had, so taht any benefits paid is reimburded to the government - but this is just the technical bit that wont affect your paymrent of benefit)

Answer 2

I believe that if you receive compensation or any other sum of money ie; from house sale or a will that your benefits will stop . The idea of benefits are to help people who have no money at all. Don't try to hide it the Goverment is very clever about finding out about peoples lives.

Answer 3

if you are one of the many many genuine claimants then disregard these idiots but I have the feeling it will because everyone seems utterly obsessed with knocking the sick and or disabled this month, last month it was the single parent before that the asians, before that  it was teens, before  -  you see, then it goes round again and again just in case we remember that our families have and still are paying taxes and in many cases until we became too ill or disabled most of us did, as well. there are a couple of sites on line that would probably answer your question or ring the dss help line for an answer. I hope I am wrong and you do get the compensation, and above all that you get better and can take your place as most of us would love to do back in work, as no decent person needs to be punished or made to feel ashamed of something that we cannot help. A pity though that these people don't crib at the amount this country has wasted on nuclear power stations and on trident and a 3mn pound blooming aircraft carrier etc., and the mp's 2nd homes caper isn't it not to mention their junkets and so on?

Answer 4

to claim for benefits you are only alowed so much savings

Answer 5

anything and everything will affect your benefit payment, its really a tricky subject.

What you can do is call the benefit advice line and ask them, but personally speaking, if you can remain anonomouse I would do, maybe put off compensation or give it to someone else? once you recieve over £20 a week it will affect your benefits, I used to be on incap, I ws told it was £75 a week and used to work for £75 a week. Then I was told they had made a mistake and I owed them housing benefit which I was not entitled to if recieveing incap and working £75 a week even if it was supported theraputic working.

What also turned out was that I had taken off tax and I wasnt supposed to, so actually I was earning over £75 a week, even though I wasnt actually getting all of it. (I was taxed 22% and weekly had been on arounf £95 a week if you dont take off tax). This meant I was accountable for everything, and not able to get any financial help as my hours were below 16 so I was not able to get working tax credits or anything like that. Follwoing these ruiles through, after tax, rent and council tax, I would have been in negative income. I had to give up my job as there were not extra hours, and there was no pay rise.

This adds to my previous issue with them where I had left uni, worked for a bit then become very ill with anorexia. I applied for benefits as I was unable to work, but was told I was not able to get them, so I left it at that, I was lucky as I was a new graduate at the time, so was still able, 7 months after graduating, to take out a graduate loan of £2000 which managed to see me through a very difficult time.

Eventually, 2 years later, I took on a job, for a year and then became ill again, this is when I was asked to apply again by my care support worker, and the benefits people worked out they had made a mistake for the previous years, they asked me to reclaim and I was infact entitled to benefits. yet my cirumstances had not changed, although I was beginning to look for a job by then ironicly. I tried to chase the 2 years before as I was getting charged on my £2000 loan and the overdraft I had taken out to live off as I had no benefits of money comming in when I was ill. I needed the money to pay the bank back basicly. I was told no, I was not able to chase anything back more then 12 months. If I had been able to, I would have been entitled to around £6000. This is money I was supposed to live off. I had been living off a loan and overdraft. yet thier mistake has cost me this and more, as I get charged interest on this.

I know that if your on income support, you can recieve upto £20 a week and this is ok,if its incapacity benefit and its seen as theraputic earnings, you can recieve up to £75 a week, but if its incapacity benefit and you get housing benefit

in addition, then anything you recieve on either benefit can and will directly come off your housing benefit, and they do not take into account the tax.

Please be very careful, it is very very easy for them to s***w you over.

Answer 6

What you on benefits for firstly. 80% of people in this country on benefits could actually work for a living (that is not to say you are definatly one of them) although statistics are against you. Why don't you ask the benefits agency. Or are you worried they will stop the benefits your on?

Answer 7

LOL!

ALL benefits are for those who cannot afford to live without that help.

If you have a change in your financial income. you MUST inform the D.H.S.S.

Answer 8

Yes it will probably.

You will have to inform them of any money that you get and then let them decide whether this makes your payements less

Answer 9

The above answer is absolutely correct. As IB is not means tested it is not effected by a compensation payment. I also agree that if a benefit is awarded for the same period as the compensation it could be "recovered" from the payout.

Some of the other answers are somewhat mis-leading as they refer to means tested benefits.