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Employment Support Allowance A new Welfare Reform Act came into force in 2009. Incapacity Benefit is replaced by Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and a much tighter set of rules governing any assistance. The clear intention is to reduce the cost of welfare payments to those who can’t work because of sickness or accident. The new Act means that after you’ve been off sick for 3 months, you have a “work capability assessment” which is to find out what work you can do. It isn’t to see if you’re capable of returning to your old job – it’s to see if you’re capable of returning to any job and if you are, it’s very unlikely you’ll receive ESA. You can’t insist on holding out for a return to your old line of work; you have to take anything that’s going. The Department of Work and Pensions website gives the number of successful claims as 5%, or 1 in 20. Income Protection insurance is intended to replace about half your basic income and if you're earning about the national average wage or above, that's more than you'd receive from ESA. The cost is affected by several factors – the type of work you do, your age, your medical history, and also by things like how soon does the plan start to make payments? Are they to be index-linked? It’s highly flexible and different types of plan are suitable for almost all budgets. No Government’ll look after you these days – you need to take the initiative. Call us for a chat and a quote for Income Protection.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
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