Overlapping Benefits
The benefits listed below are earnings replacement benefits and are generally paid in recognition of your inability to work, for example, because you are ill, pregnant or bereaved:
- Basic State Pension
- Carer's Allowance
- contribution-based Jobseeker's Allowance
- contributory Employment and Support Allowance
- Maternity Allowance
- New State Pension
- Widowed Parent's Allowance
- Incapacity Benefit (abolished October 2008)
- Severe Disablement Allowance (abolished April 2001)
If you qualify for more than one of these benefits there are rules to decide which benefit you will actually be paid.
For example, if you qualify for Carer’s Allowance but are receiving another earnings replacement benefit, you will not actually receive a payment of Carer's Allowance, but you will receive a carer’s premium/addition within any other means-tested benefits you get because you are considered to have an ‘underlying entitlement' to Carer's Allowance. If your other benefit is worth less than Carer's Allowance it will be ‘topped up’ so you don’t end up worse off.
The rules about 'overlapping' benefits are complicated and you may need to get advice about this from an expert benefits adviser. You can use our Find an Adviser tool to locate an adviser in your area.