Carers Premium

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone claimed Carers Allowance against a partners PIP award and received Carers Premium instead for their partner and vice versa.
I have been advised to claim this but feel uneasy about it. My husband and I care for each other as best we can and no one gets Carers Allowance for looking after us. I would be afraid if we claimed this it would leave us open to more reassessments for our PIP and ESA.
Any advice would be very grateful if anyone had any experience of this or thoughts on it.

Thank you
Jess

[quote="Jessica
" post=257749]Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone claimed Carers Allowance against a partners PIP award and received Carers Premium instead for their partner and vice versa.
I have been advised to claim this but feel uneasy about it. My husband and I care for each other as best we can and no one gets Carers Allowance for looking after us. I would be afraid if we claimed this it would leave us open to more reassessments for our PIP and ESA.
Any advice would be very grateful if anyone had any experience of this or thoughts on it.

Thank you
Jess[/quote]

There is case law somewhere about the carers meeting different needs which I used in respect on my daughter meeting the physical needs of my son-in-law while he met her mental health needs {he was claiming carers allowance] but this was only used as he was claiming DLA for his physical needs. My daughter did not claim carers needs but neither did the family who were supporting both of them at one stage. Not sure if this helps

Hi. I claim carers allowance for looking after the mental health needs of my Son who has Aspergers, and I am in receipt of PIP enhanced for both mobility and daily living. However, during my DLA-PIP changeover, I was only awarded standard rate for both. I went to Tribunal and in the papers from the DWP, they were questioning my receipt of carers allowance and was I claiming fraudulently for PIP or Carers allowance. I was so angry at that since they never once asked me about it. I won at Tribunal. I am now in the process of changing my Son from DLA to PIP and coincidentally, my own award is due to end and so I am having to claim from the start (I was awarded at Tribunal so I can't renew). This time, I am making it very clear how I manage to care for my Son whilst also needing a great deal of support myself. So, yes, it is possible to claim CA whilst claiming PIP, but be prepared to explain how you give 35 hours of care to the person you're claiming CA for and make sure that the care that you give doesn't contradict your PIP claim. In reality, we end up doing things to care for our loved ones that cause us problems with our disability, but I think as far as the DWP are concerned, it's very black and white. I hope this helps.

Hi Jessica,
It is a difficult one as we were told by WR to put in a claim for CA, which I didn't think that we were entitled to. After discussions on here, & by ringing carers, we were told that we couldn't claim CA due to an overlapping benefit (contribution based ESA), however, my partner did have an underlying entitlement to CP. This way we were financially better off, had we claimed CA we would've lost out financially. I'd suggest you give carers a ring & see what they say, they were really helpful & even sent me an email explaining everything that we'd discussed as I simply couldn't grasp it. Have a copy of all of your benefits as they'll be asking you about this. Good Luck!