UC and premiums

lovejoywelsh said:

Hi
I have PIP and the premiums added to your JSA. so, £213.30 JSA.
I see PIP continue outside UC.

My premiums added to your JSA, would that be lost in Universal Credit. (i.e £462.15 plus housing) or £316.76

At the moment no premiums are paid with UC. There will be a transitional protection in place when people do start to move across from 2019 but if a chage of circumstances prompts a move across you will lose the premiums.

lovejoywelsh,

You don't move to UC just because your Jobcentre is starting to deliver UC. If a change of circumstances means you have to make a new claim for benefit, you may end up on UC because you can't avoid having to make a claim (this only applies to new claims for irESA, Income Support, income-based JSA, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit - once Coventry is 'full service' for UC, new claims for those benefits can't be made & it has to be UC). Nobody 'moves' you at the moment - it's up to you whether to claim, though help may be available if you do need to.

If because of your study and/or work, one of your existing benefits (for example, JSA or HB) stopped, and then you had to make a new claim after Coventry was delivering UC, then you would currently have to claim UC. 

However, the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions recently said they are going to stop people entitled to the severe disability premium from being moved to UC UNTIL there is transitional protection. This hasn't happened yet, but we expect it to happen soon. So you might not have to claim UC in any case, or at least, not until July 2019 at the earliest. You'd make a new claim for one of the old benefits instead (eg JSA and/or HB). 

Eventually, when you claim UC in what is called 'managed migration', which is when the DWP write to you & tell you your existing benefit is stopping & UC has to be claimed (a process which is not due to start until July 2019, & could be much later), then you WILL get transitional protection - in other words, you won't lose money

If it happens that you claim UC in 'natural migration' before they change the rules & stop people entitled to the SDP from moving, it will only be because you need for some reason to make a new claim (for example, because of study/work JSA has to stop, then later you need to claim again and it has to be UC). In this case you WILL get a payment from the government to make up for the loss (the Secretary of State announced this recently). We don't have any details of how this will work at the moment though.

My advice would be to avoid claiming UC until you have to though. That's because the longer you can leave it, the more likely it is that they'll have changed the rules so that people getting the severe disability premiums don't have to claim UC until at least July 2019.

I hope this helps.

Will

ESAESA said:

hi lovejoywelsh.
I was just reading through and saw yr post.
Im so confused. Im on ESA Cb . I Receive Pip standard rate Care  and Enhanced rate Mobilty.  Just completed a claim form sent by DWP last week telling me i MAY be entitled to Inc Related ESA  premium which i wasn't awarded when placed on ESA contribution based several years ago. I didnt know  about it to be fair..Out of the blue DWP sent me this form. I heard from a friend that if i go ahead with the claim , il get put onto UC and lose any premium anyway, if im entitled to, as i will have to transition over to UC BEFORE july 2019 n lose any of the protection u mentioned above  . is it a ploy for me do something I'll regret later.? Anxiety topup!
Any advice or rights i have? 
Kindest Regards 

I have heard that this can happen if you're in a full UC area, i have no idea if this is true or not.