ESA Rapid Reclaim

calcotti

OP, it occurs to me that if your GP will backdate aFit Note you can backdate your new ESA claim to the day after your previous one ended (assuming it is less than three months ago).

calcotti

Reviewing my comments from last night I now think I was wrong to say you may need a new WCA and have to serve a new assessment waiting period.

Under rules for ESA periods of LCW separated by less less than 12 weeks are linked, which is what the rapid reclaim was about. In the case of a linked LCW you should be treated as still in the Support Group from the start of the new claim.

The linking rules are preserved in the ESA Regulations 2013. See regulation 86 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/379/regulation/86. This means you should preserve the Support Group status and the relevant NI years can be those that determined your original eligibility.

The thing that has changed therefore is that you need to make a new claim rather than a rapid reclaim. How good the DWP systems will be at linking the claims have no idea.

Because you will now be on new style ESA you will come under the UC conditionality and sanctions system, in practice this is unlikely to make any difference to you. You will also no longer be eligible for income based ESA top up.

lassfarfromhome

Thanks Calcotti for all that helpful info, esp for the link to the relevant Regs.  Hopefully the system will somehow link my old claim to the one I just made.  
To answer your question, no, no deduction from my ESA was made to account for the insurance payments I'm getting.  DWP are aware about the insurance and were fine with it.  

calcotti

lassfarfromhome said:

...no, no deduction from my ESA was made to account for the insurance payments I'm getting.  DWP are aware about the insurance and were fine with it.  

Treatment of these payments is very confusing - as long as ESA know that's fine.