Disablement Benefit

What is Disablement Benefit

Disablement benefit is for people who are disabled because of an accident at work, or who have certain diseases caused by their work. Only industrial diseases qualify, for example, diseases caused by chemicals you have worked with or hearing loss caused by your work. You can get a list of the diseases from your local benefits office.

Who can get Disablement Benefit

You can get Disablement Benefit if you were a paid employee at the time that you had your accident at work or contracted the industrial disease. You must also be disabled because of the accident or disease. An assessment will be made on how your disability affects you. The Department for Work and Pensions state the extent of your disablement as a percentage and you must usually be assessed as having at least 14% disablement to get benefit, although there are exceptions to this.

An examining doctor or other medical professional will assess you after you make your claim. Depending on the assessment, you can be paid Disablement Benefit for a fixed period or for life. The amount depends on your percentage disablement and your age.

You do not have to have paid national insurance contributions to receive Disablement Benefit. You can get it whether or not you have time off work. If you go into hospital, your disablement benefit will not be affected.

Disablement Benefit, change of circumstances and fraud

If your circumstances change so that you are more disabled and you think you may be able to get more benefit, you should tell the Department for Work and Pensions as soon as possible. You should also tell them if your condition improves. If you do not report a change of circumstances that could affect your benefit, or you give incorrect or misleading information, you may be committing a benefit fraud. Even if you are not committing fraud, you can cause an overpayment that will have to be repaid. Your circumstances can be checked at any time while you are claiming Disablement Benefit. Benefit fraud is a criminal offence and you can be prosecuted or asked to pay a penalty. If you are being investigated for benefit fraud, your benefit may be suspended. If you are convicted of benefit fraud more than once, your benefit can be reduced or stopped in the future.

Problems with Disablement Benefit

The problem that many people face is that they declare their capabilities truthfully to begin with but their conditions vary and change so frequently that they it is difficult or impossible to describe the variations and effects of different conditions they and treatment deployed on them. They forget how they described the conditions on their DB forms and find themselves subject to scrutiny or investigation and accused of lying in the first place or failing to notify a change of circumstances.

Legal Advice - Claimant need to advise changes or circumstance in order to cover themselves against the risk of criminal investigation. A record of contacts need to be made and it needs to be clear which completed form [if any] the claimant is referring to.