Child's Personal Injury Compensation affecting Income Based Benefits

dippy3103

NeilCr wrote: »

Agreed.

I had someone in at CAB a couple of weeks back in much the same situation. They had won the case and there was a compensation payment. Their solicitor had sent them to us for benefits advice.

Which is exactly why they need to make sure they get a decent solicitor and not an ambulance chasing “no win, no fee”.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

All solicitors and insurers inform the DWP that a compensation claim is being made in your name, (youll be his litigation friend), youll receive an automatic letter stating they know a claim had been made but as no payment has been paid there is no need to contact them and there will be no changes to your benefits during the time it takes to fight the claim and be awarded.


But Compensation claim payouts DO affect means tested and contribution based benefits If they go over the saving threshold IIRC. 6k to 16k IIRC is the outlined savings allowance which I think compensation pay outs are classed as, Once you exceed 6k in "savings" then your benefits are to be reduced, the more you save the bigger the reduction in means tested benefits until you hit the 16K mark then it will be reduced to 0 but your underlying entitlement should still remain and your NI conts will still be paid on your behalf.


Theres also a rule that if you deliberately spend the money in one go it will still be counted as saving and the period they specify you go without or have a reduced amount will remain.

There is now a dedicated Compensation Recovery Unit within the DWP.

I could be incorrect in my advice here but this is what is USED to be a few years ago. You should always seek specialist advice to confirm.

Tommo1980

This is incorrect.

A. The compensation would be for OPs child.

B. Contribution based benefits are not affected by savings. For Income based benefits, compensation payouts are disregarded for 52 weeks, though there are conditions attached to this disregard.

JackJones456

I will inform the solicitor tomorrow that I am on Income Based benefits. The solicitor is not the 'ambulance chaser' type as they are well know in the town and deal with all other legal matters.

Hopefully if an award is ever made, it can be put in a Trust Fund for my child when he reaches 18. Headway have an excellent link in thread number 3 above and I will be asking the solicitor about such a Trust Fund tomorrow.