How rigid is the 11 week rule on illness benefit

One More Toy

Hi all

I was sick last month for a couple of days and had to apply for illness benefit. That went fine

Now I'm off long term and it hasn't been 11 weeks since I've last received illness benefit. I'm totally screwed. Work isn't paying me for my sick days anymore

Any advice would be much appreciated

Tia

Omt

Gremlinertia

Would a community welfare officer bridge this until 11 weeks is up perhaps?

One More Toy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118060713#Comment_118060713

I can certainly try, how does one contact the cwo?

Gremlinertia

Google 'community welfare officer' plus your location should give results

mystic

Can you explain what the "11 week rule" is.

As far as I know there is nothing stopping you applying for Illness Benefit. The only issue may be whether your claim would be linked to your previous one and whether waiting days would apply to your new claim.

Illness Benefit can be paid for up to two years.

Best advice is to apply for Illness Benefit and get a formal decision on your application. If it's disallowed you should apply for Supplementary Welfare Allowance. See link https://www.gov.ie/en/service/36e514-supplementary-welfare-allowance/#apply

Hope this helps

One More Toy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118060940#Comment_118060940

The 11 week rule is that you cannot claim illness benefit again within 11 weeks of your previous claim. I applied for it a week and a half ago and have heard nothing back so I'm assuming that is the reason I have received nothing yet. They are usually very quick

mystic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118060949#Comment_118060949

Best advice is to email the IB section directly at illnessbenefit@welfare.ie.

mystic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118060949#Comment_118060949

Can you please provide a link to where this info is. I've checked the IB operational guidelines and there's no reference to 11 weeks in the document.

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/fde95f-operational-guidelines-illness-benefit/

Dempo1

I'm not aware of the 11 week rule OP refers too, perhaps they might be referring to this point

"If you return to work, you must have a minimum of 13 reckonable PRSI contributions paid before you may requalify for Illness Benefit. (All other qualifying conditions must also be satisfied"

But given OP appears to have been on IB for such a short time and having to go back on it relatively quickly, I'd hope discretion would be used with ample contributions still available to be able to qualify.

Regardless OP, it's important you have reapplied as it's recommended you apply within 6 weeks of becoming ill.

There are large volumes of applications so I wouldn't be at all surprised of a slight delay in processing, but as others have advised get in touch with CWO in the meantime.

One More Toy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118061096#Comment_118061096

Yes sorry I read 11 weeks somewhere last night but it does appear to be 13 PRSI contributions

Dempo1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118061399#Comment_118061399

Yes, I thought that what it might be but obviously I can't be 100% sure but I believe they'll show some flexibility given such a short time between two claims, there are other options as others have mentioned but hopefully you'll have not issues, keep us posted , good luck

ari101

Hey OP, having been on benefit and spoken to the dedicated illness benefit team in social welfare about this particular 13 week rule earlier this year I can confirm you are misinterpreting it (as I did too).

Mystic above is correct. What happens is (if you have sufficient contributions) you are entitled to 2 years benefit (104 weeks). When you start claiming that number goes down, so you say you claimed for 1 week, that means you have 103 weeks left. If you start another claim within 13 weeks of the previous claim the maximum you can claim is 103 weeks. If you wait 13 weeks between claims it resets the max to 104.

In circumstances where you might have been off for a long period initially, let's say 26 weeks, returned to work for maybe 10 weeks but then know you need to go back off for another long period, it can be in your interest to wait the full 13 weeks so that second claim is not linked to the first. I.e. it can run for a full 104 weeks, not a max of 78 weeks (104-26). There might be some other query on your claim, or just a slow processing week in the SA office.

Ring them, in my experience they were really helpful and wanted to ensure I got the most from my benefits.

One More Toy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118061678#Comment_118061678

Thanks very much for this information, I will ring them Tuesday and see what is holding up my claim then

Dempo1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118061678#Comment_118061678

Very helpful information 👍