high disabilty premium

barrybing

recently i was contacted by the ESA team asking about high disabilty premium,why i was not claiming it.I told them i didnt know about it and was I entitled.They are looking back to 2014,apperently.Can they backdate it that long,because i fit all their criteria,when i phoned back today they said they were just checking to see whether i had any overpayments or money owing to them.Does this mean im getting award?...please forgive my bad grammar..ty

tacpot12

It sounds promising. Are you receiving any income-based ESA?

They can backdate payments, and will normally do so for a far back as possible. When you hear that they are backdating some payments, you can ask them why they can't backdate any further; unless this is obvious, i.e. they have backdated it to the time that you claimed income-based ESA or when the premium was introduced as a benefit. 

There is always a risk with contacts that come out of the blue that they are not coming from the DWP, but from someone who wants to extract data about you, so be careful what information you reveal. Your use of the phrase "high disability premium" set my alarm bells ringing because there is no such premium!

There is an Enhanced Disability Premium and there is a Severe Disability Premium, there is no "High Disability Premium". However, I expect this just you not remembering exactly the phrase they used. 

barrybing

i was till i migrated to UC 2 months ago

HillStreetBlues

If you are talking about Severe disability premium, then it should be backdated to when you first became entitled to it.
With SDP it's not something that a person needs to claim, it should be automatic (it's the reason why the backdating rule).

nannytone_2

I've never known SDP to be awarded automatically like the EDP is.
This is because the SDP is reliant on a PIP or DLA  award, and ESA aren't always  aware of which claimants receive these benefits

HillStreetBlues

nannytone_2 said:

I've never known SDP to be awarded automatically like the EDP is.
This is because the SDP is reliant on a PIP or DLA  award, and ESA aren't always  aware of which claimants receive these benefits

I agree that it's often not awarded automatically, but it should be, that's why there isn't time limit on backdating.

knightstyle

Severe Disability Premium is not available to everyone.   It is only for those who already have a means tested benefit.  So if like my DW you have a small work pension you don't get it seems so unfair as our council tax is more than her pension and we would be much better off without the pension she worked for.

Newcad

@ Barrybing - Where you by any chance getting Incapacity Benefit before being moved onto ESA in 2014?
(2014 may be a bit late for that particular 'migration', but they were still being done as late as that).

The DWP made a hash of that IB>ESA 'migration' and ended up owing a lot of people back-payments for the EDP and SDP.

They had a review excercise around 2018-20 that identified and back-paid 112,000 ESA cases £589 million as of 16 January 2020 when the review closed.
However even  with that they were aware that they hadn't corrected them all in the review.