Do we get a disability premium?

Laura99

I am trying to get an answer from the DWP. Nobody there who I have spoken to seems to know what my husband and I are entitled to.

We both get PIP and Carer's Allowance for one another.

My husband gets IR ESA. The PIP awarded to me has not actually been paid yet, and neither has the Carer's Allowance which my husband has just claimed for me. I won a tribunal three weeks ago and my Care PIP was assessed at the Standard Rate. The award was from the date that I originally claimed, so almost exactly  one year.

The question I have is: Do we qualify for any Premiums now that we are both getting PIP? And how does this affect our payments? Does any money get deducted from the ESA now that my husband has claimed Carer's Allowance for me?

I cannot get a straight answer from the DWP. They keep signposting me to different departments. I have now asked six different people and they all say different things.

Can someone here help?

whistles

Someone will pop on that can help.
I am itching my head slightly, sorry, how you can both receive pip care and care for each other? 
Not meaning to pry.

Not sure but I thought the sdp was taken off the person if they claimed a carers allowance. So you receive the allowance but your husband loses his sdp because of that- if he qualified. 
If he qualified he should already have been getting it before he applied for CA?

Laura99

The SDP was taken away when I started to get Carer'sAllowance. It isn't unusual for two people to get PIP and Carer's Allowance for each other. 

whistles

I would likely say no then, but worth checking. If you qualified for it, you lose it if someone gets a carers allowance for you.

It might alter the ESA money.

I can't get my head around how one person looks after someone for 35 hours a week, but that person also in turn looks after you for 35 hours a week.
Wouldn't it be easier to use the premiums to pay someone to come in, or contact adult social services? 

poppy123456

If you claim Carers Allowance for each other then no, you won't be able to claim the disability premium (SDP) To be able to claim this then you'll have to cancel the Carers Allowance claims. See link for SDP.
https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Severe-Disability-Premium/What-is-a-Severe-Disability-Premium

As stated in the link one of the qualifying rules is "no one claims Carers Allowance for you"

My advice to you would be to put all of your details into the a benefits calculator as if you're claiming the CA for each other, then again as if you're claiming the SDP. I'm 99% sure that claiming couples rate SDP will make you better of financially than claiming the CA for each other.

Laura99

Thanks for that, Poppy.